Text and Subtext
by WRTRD
Summary: A heavily medicated Beckett, recovering from her shooting at her father's cabin, starts texting. Set in the summer after 3x24 "Knockout." Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

It's Beckett v. Beckett in Family Court: the kitchen in a cabin in the woods, two hours' drive north of New York City.

"Dad," Kate Beckett says, perched on a stool with her elbows on the counter, trying to steady her voice. "I really can't stand to go over this again."

Jim Beckett looks and sounds exasperated with his daughter, who is insisting that she heal on her own and that he return to his law practice in the city. "Maybe that's because you can hardly stand at all, Katie. You can't even walk from here to the fireplace without having to stop."

Anger nudges away her little vestiges of politeness. "Well, then, you don't have to worry about me running away, do you, Dad? Something you're always accusing me of doing."

"Look, let's not argue about this—"

"Good, we agree. We're not arguing anymore. I'm thirty-one years old and can take care of myself. And there's enough food here—and what did you put in the freezer, anyway, half a cow?—for a year."

"Katie."

"Please. Dad. I'm so grateful for how much you helped me in the last couple of weeks, but I want to do the rest on my own. I can change my bandages now. I can eat." She picks up her phone from the counter and waves it at her father. "And you and the doctor and anyone else I might need are right here."

He puts his hands up. "Okay, okay. You win. But I'll be back on Saturday morning, and stay the weekend."

"Fair enough, counselor," she says. She wants to send him off on an optimistic note. "Maybe you can bring the other half of the cow when you come back."

Not long after she's waving to him from the porch, gripping the door jamb to keep herself upright. She waves until he's nothing but the dust his car tires kick up as he drives down the dirt road. When she's certain that he's out of sight, she slumps against the door and breathes as deeply as her not-fully-mended wounds allow. "God, I need some coffee," she says, and totters slowly inside.

She's not yet allowed caffeine in what she considers sufficient quantity, but found that if she mixes decaf with really good high-octane beans, her coffee is at least potable. Limited activity, fresh air, and the tray load of meds she has to take conspire to make her sleepy, and she hates it. Her brain feels like sludge. Bad enough her body is so weak, does her mental acuity have to be zip, too?

She's indulging in this early evening bit of self-pity when punishment arrives. She has just taken out the bag of coffee beans when she knocks it over with her elbow and the contents scatter on the floor. They skitter under the fridge and the sink, carom off the sofa and the bookcase, and wind up under a table and two chairs. Some shoot all the way across the room, barred from a journey to the out-of-doors only by the threshold. "Damn it," she says. "God damn it."

Castle had given her five one-pound bags of those very pricey, heavenly beans a few months ago, after they'd closed the case of a juror who had been poisoned with cyanide-laced coffee. "Have to get the awful taste out of your mouth, Beckett," he had said as he presented the coffee to her. When she had pointed out that she hadn't been the one who ingested the cyanide, he'd said, "Doesn't matter. This case could have poisoned your mind against coffee. When you think of it now, I want you to think of this Jamaican Blue." She'd asked her father to fetch two bags from her freezer and bring them up to the cabin, and he had. Just told him she wanted them, not the source.

She definitely can't crawl on the floor, but she gets the broom and though it takes a long time she makes a reasonably good job of it, brushing most of the beans into a rounded pyramid next to the stove. It's when she bends to move the pile into the dustpan that she realizes her mistake, as she screams in pain from the effort. Now she's in agony, so intense that she drops the broom, which sends hundreds of beans all over the floor again. Jenny Bemis, the nearest neighbor, is dropping by on Tuesday morning in case Kate needs anything; but that's 36 hours away, and the coffee will have to stay where it is until then.

It takes several minutes for the pain to subside enough for her to move at all. She surveys the area as she hangs on to the counter. "These fucking beans. I'm going to slip on them and break my fucking leg or my fucking arm or my fucking neck and then I'll never fucking get well, ever." She tries nudging a few out of the way with her foot, but it's an unsatisfactory exercise. They just roll to a different place where they can trip her up. Walking across the floor will be like navigating a mine field. She's trying to keep her mind clear. She hasn't the strength to stand on only one leg, either, which makes moving one foot like that almost impossible unless she has an immovable object to hang on to.

Immovable object.

Castle.

There's an immovable object for you. A massive, immovable object. True, he has trouble sitting still, but in one way, one all-important way, he's immovable. He's stuck by her for three years. He's completely steadfast. He's in love with her. He'd said so. He'd said so right after he'd tried to push her out of the way of a bullet. There was no chance, not when that projectile was traveling at 2,300 feet a second, but he'd tried. He'd told her to stay with him. Told her not to leave him. His blue eyes, a more beautiful blue even than the sky behind him, were the last thing she'd seen when she'd closed hers. But she remembers that, and remembers the warmth of a tear that had fallen from his eye and landed at the corner of her mouth. She'd wanted to taste it, but she couldn't. Couldn't move. That was the last thing she'd known, his tear on her lower lip and the horror in his blue eyes.

And the next morning she'd told him not to call, that she'd call him, and she hasn't. What kind of a coward is she? She'd divested herself of Josh 48 hours after her shooting and spent another week in the hospital before coming up here. It's been 24 days since she's seen or called or emailed Castle. Twenty-four miserable days.

She must have looked like death when he'd seen her the morning after her surgery. Of course she looked like death, she'd died in the ambulance on the way from the cemetery—how weird is that, dying after you leave a cemetery?—and again in the O.R. If she were a cat, she'd be down to seven lives, but she's not a cat, she's a human, and how many more chances is she going to get? She's pretty sure she's down to one life, and she really, really, really wants to spend it with Castle. There. She's said it. Well, not out loud, but in her head. But it's going to take a while before she can give voice to that thought, because she's a mess. Her head is mess and so is her body. She can't give him a messed-up head or a messed-up body.

She can't believe the pain that's stabbing her in the side now. She was supposed to be getting something to eat, she'd promised her Dad that she would. She can't. Everything hurts too much. She needs her meds. If only she could have some coffee to wash them down, if only it weren't all over the floor. She can't call Jenny Bemis and ask her to ride to the rescue. "Hi. Sorry to bother you on Sunday night when you're probably in bed, but it's an emergency. Could you please drive over here and pick my errant coffee beans off the floor since I'm incapable of it?"

Her hands are trembling a little, but she gets the bottle open. The pain is so ferocious that she can't read the label well. Two, right? Her Dad had been taking care of this, but it must be two. She's pretty sure she can remember feeling two pills on her tongue every evening. She fills her wish-it-were-coffee mug with some water, and swallows.

Thank God this stuff kicks in fast. It takes her a quarter of an hour to inch across the kitchen and living room to her bed, but by the time she gets there she's feeling much better. She brushes her teeth, gingerly takes off her yoga pants, and lies down. Huh. She's feeling remarkably well. Why is she here by herself? She needs company. If she had company she could have coffee. They could have coffee. Her company could get the beans off the floor and put them in the grinder that goes whirr whirr whirr and then put them in the pot and then the water would get hot and turn into coffee. It's a miracle! A miracle drink.

Who would be good company? Who would come get the beans? Who makes the best coffee on the whole planet Earth and the solar system and probably the universe? Castle! That's who! She'll just call him. Oh, maybe he doesn't want to be disturbed. It's very late. She said she'd call him and she hasn't. She's bad. Bad bad bad. What if she texts? That's a great idea! That's not a call. Where is her phone? Oh, right here. Here it is. She can type. Type type type. Castle Castle Castle.

There are two mugs and two glasses—one wine, one tumbler—on Castle's desk. All of them should be in the dishwasher. He should be in the shower. He's been moping around in the same tee shirt and pajama bottoms for two days, but he's all alone, so what difference does it make? He's sort of playing a game on his computer, but his heart isn't in it. His heart hasn't been in anything for 24 days. Twenty-four miserable days. His phone chirps. He'd like to ignore it, but he's a parent, and parents can't ignore their phones, especially when their children are away at a college prep summer program.

He picks it up. It's not his daughter. Jesus, it's Kate.

"Hey, Castle, guess what? I am all by myself at the cabin and I spilled the beans. That sounds like I told a secret but I didn't, even though I have a secret! I spilled the coffee beans you gave me. I can't pick them up. I need coffee. I need company. Can you make me coffee and keep me company? Oh, this is Beckett."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

He knows he's tired, knows his cognitive senses might be slightly compromised by too much junk food, too much booze, too little sleep, and too little exercise in the last couple of days, but he's sober. He's totally sober, and this makes no sense. This is Beckett? It can't be. Doesn't sound like her at all. Should he call? She told him not to call, said she'd call. But she hasn't. But she just texted him and asked him to come keep her company. Should he text her back? WTH? WTF?

Each time he reads her text the less sense it makes. On the fifth go-round his heart speeds up. This is a hoax. Or a cruel joke. Or a trap. This isn't Beckett. She wouldn't identify herself, say "this is Beckett," at the end of her text. Wouldn't need to. Oh, wait. He's got it. It's Davidson. Now he really wishes that he'd punched the jerk's lights out in the hospital that night, after her surgery. Doctor Motorcycle Boy is using Beckett's phone to taunt him. What a sick bastard.

Castle needs to think about this for a minute. Beckett is at her father's cabin, that's the only thing he's sure of. What if she really is all by herself and Josh isn't with her? What if he abandoned her and left her to fend for herself in some rustic hellhole with mice and spiders and possibly snakes and no insulation and bad electrical wiring and God only knows what outside? It dawns on him that there's an easy way to find out. Easy peasy, you son of a bitch. Castle stabs the hospital number into his phone and asks for the cardiologist. Two transfers later he's in the right department.

"Doctor Davidson is making night rounds," the nurse at the desk says, "but he'll be free in ten minutes. Would you care to leave a message or a voicemail, Mister Castle?"

No, Mister Castle would not. Mister Castle would not care to leave anything but a death threat. But he says, "Thank you so much, Nurse Fredricks, no need to bother the doctor. It's not urgent at all. I'll catch up with him another time." Another time when he will take him apart with his own scalpel, since he is not where a Real Boyfriend and a Real Doctor should be, which is with Kate.

Why isn't he with Kate, anyway? Is her father with her? Should he call Jim? Jim seems to like him, trust him. But it's after midnight, much too late to phone unless it's an emergency. Is this an emergency? Beckett asked him to come keep her company—assuming it's Beckett who texted and not an axe murderer who is holding her hostage and luring Castle to the cabin.

"You're a writer, for Christ's sake," he says to himself. "Analyze this text. It's sixty-five words. What's the subtext? Is there a subtext? Gotta be one. It's Beckett. If it's Beckett." He decides to take it apart as if it were a homicide investigation or a book that he's plotting, so he creates a new document on his computer and begins to map it out.

The easy stuff first. The coffee. She has the coffee that he gave her, the Jamaican Blue. What's it doing at the cabin? His heart eases a little. She has his coffee, she chose his coffee! Not the swill she usually drinks at home. She must have brought it with her, except that's not possible, given her condition. Did she ask someone to bring it to her? Who? No one from the Twelfth has seen her. Neither has Lanie. Did Josh deliver it and then hightail out of there on his stupid motorcycle? Did Jim?

Shit, this is much harder than he thought. Okay. Take another tack. She says she wants company and—

The phone chirps again. He squeezes his eyes shut and holds the cell in his hand as if it were either a hand grenade or a love letter. He slowly opens one eye. Beckett! It's been 20 minutes since her first text.

"Are you coming to visit me? Cuh cuh cuh Casssstle, beautiful Castle! Do you know that song? When I was little it was Kuh kuh kuh Kaaaatie, beautiful Katie! So it can be our song! We have a song! I need my coffee. Really really really need it. This is Beckett. Are you coming?"

Oh, it's definitely Beckett. Insane as it sounds—insane as she sounds—it has to be. Anyone else would have typed 'R U coming?' She hates those abbreviations. Is she drunk? She sounds it, but it can't be. She'd never drink while she's on meds, and she must be on powerful meds, given what her body has gone through. MEDS! It's the meds talking! Isn't it? Is there an _in meds veritas_ the way there's an _in vino veritas_? What's the Latin for 'meds'? Holy shit, he's sounding as crazy as Beckett. He smiles. Of course he is. That's because he's crazy about her. As crazy about her as he has ever been about anyone. He wants to go downstairs and get in the car and drive 120 miles an hour to wherever the cabin is and make her a million cups of coffee and keep her company forever.

But he can't do that, can he? What if the meds have worn off by the time he gets there? Or she's asleep and he wakes her up? Will she even remember having texted him? And then she'll be pissed beyond belief at him and throw him out. What if he calls her? Or texts back? He clamps his hands on his head. He can't screw this up. He's got to think this through. How limited is she now? She spilled the beans and can't pick them up, so her movements are restricted. He could call Lanie. Hell, no. He doesn't want to tip his hand. Think. Ah! Alan Bernstingle! The ER doctor in Los Angeles who was so helpful when he was researching gunshot wounds for one of his Derrick Storm books. It's only 10 o'clock in California, he can call him. Email, that's better. Marked urgent. He quickly outlines Beckett's wounds and the surgery she had, adding that she has always been incredibly fit. He asks what her physical limitations would be after three and half weeks, how powerful the painkillers. Would they cause her to talk (or text) like this?

Bernstingle rocks. He answers almost immediately, explaining that he can't say exactly without seeing the patient and the case notes, but giving a very clear picture of what her state probably is. It's possible that she has over medicated, but not to worry. It will make her super loopy but cause no damage, assuming she's on the standard protocol. Castle thanks him and calls the best liquor store in Los Angeles to order the doctor three bottles of the best Scotch available.

He thinks about what Alan told him. Beckett must be in terrible pain, and unable to do much. Walk a little, that's it. Very slowly recovering. It must be awful for someone as strong and as independent as she. He'd been so hurt and angry that she hadn't called him, but that's gone into the ether now. To be practical, which is hardly his default position, he can't go see her now because all he knows about the cabin is that it's a couple of hours' drive—a lot less if he takes the Ferrari—from the city, and she's in no state to provide directions. He'll call her father in the morning. What he can do now is text her back, assure her that he'll come. That'll give her an out in the morning if she realizes what she'd said while she was meds drunk and changes her mind. She must really be on the good stuff. She should be. She deserves it.

Don't change your mind, Kate. Please, please, please.

She'd sent the second text more than a quarter of an hour ago. Maybe she's asleep now? He swallows hard.

"Hey, Beckett, it's Castle. Leave those beans right where they are! I'll come first thing in the morning and make you coffee. Maybe we can sit outside, unless you have man-eating mosquitoes up there."

He knows he should try to go to bed, but he's so wired it's not possible. Maybe he should eat something healthy. He goes to the kitchen, grabs a blueberry yogurt and a bottle of mango juice, and returns to the office. There's his phone, face up on the deck, its screen filled with her latest text.

"Hey, Castle. I don't know if we have man-eating mosquitoes here. They bite me all the time but I'm a woman! I bet you know that because you saw me naked when my apartment blew up. La la la la la la!"

He drops the mango juice, which splatters all over the floor. He doesn't care. Should he answer or not? He should have a shrink or someone on call to advise him on what to do. He'll eat the yogurt and clean up the juice and then decide by himself. He's licking the spoon when he hears it.

Chirp.

"You're going to pick up the beans I spilled. You'll do a good job cause everyone always said you're a great pick-up artist."

Oh, God. Not much subtext there. He's ashamed to admit it, but he used to be a _great_ pick-up artist. Not any more. It's true. The only person he wants to pick up is Beckett. Pick her up and hang on to her.

Chirp.

"Nighty nighty nighty night I am so sleepy. This is Beckett. Nighty night."

No more texting from him, then. But how's he going to last until 7:30, when he can decently call Jim Beckett? And then it hits him. The first text. She said that she has a secret.

TBC

 **A/N** Oh, for the good old days of S3-S4! Thank you so much for all your enthusiasm for this story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She has a secret. Hell, who hasn't? But she mentioned it, and if she mentioned it, it must be really something because Beckett is the Empress of Zipped Lips. Except for that freezing cold night six months ago, when they were in the alley behind that warehouse. Oh, her lips were decidedly unzipped then. Those lips unzipped and welcomed him in and—. "Don't go there," he mumbles, shaking his head like a large, wet dog.

What's more important right now: trying to figure out what her secret is, or making coffee that she's so desperate for that she texted him five times in an hour? After 24 days of silence. Very late at night. From her bed—presumably her bed—of pain. Although she doesn't appear to be feeling any pain at the moment, judging from the content of her texts.

That does it. No way he's waiting until 7:30 in the morning to come to her rescue, be her own personal Juan Valdez, with a sportscar instead of a donkey. "Where the hell is this cabin?" he screams at his laptop.

Maybe it's the screaming that breaks up the logjam in his brain. He'll go over to Jim's Beckett's apartment, wherever it is, and ask. After all, Jim had come over to his, unannounced, four weeks ago, and asked him a favor. He can knock quietly on the door. Jim might still be awake. If he doesn't answer, Castle will text him. He has his number, got it for an emergency. Okay, didn't exactly "get" it, he'd copied it from Beckett's phone when she wasn't looking. Good thing, too, the trouble she gets into. But how is he going to find out where her Dad lives? The white pages online, that's how! Jim's an old-fashioned kind of guy, he's probably listed there. Castle enters the information: no dice. Not so old-fashioned, after all. He squints at the screen. Wait, here's a thing. For $19.95 he can get immediate access to all kinds of stuff about James Beckett, Esquire. His birthdate; who he lives with, if anyone; where he lives. Who knew? He'd pay a hundred times that just for the address.

Sixty seconds and twenty bucks later, Castle is putting Jim's address in his phone. He fleetingly wonders how P.I.s stay in business, considering how much information is easily obtainable on the internet. Pocketing his cell and his wallet, he goes to the garage, fires up the Ferrari, and drives uptown to a handsome old brick building on West End Avenue. There's even an available parking space opposite it. Let's see. Apartment 8A. He knows the layouts of these 1920s "pre-war classics"; Jim's place must be on the eighth floor, on the hmmmm. On the southeast corner. He looks up and counts. Almost every window in the fifteen-story building is dark, no surprise, but there's definitely a light burning in one room of what he's reasonably sure is 8A.

He runs across the street and enters the lobby. There's a doorman, of course, who will announce him, but Castle doesn't want announcing. Doesn't want to give Jim time to think about what he's doing here. He strolls confidently to the desk, where a doorman who looks as if he passed retirement age some time ago is reading the _Bugler_.

"Hello, I'm Rick Castle, here to see James Beckett. I was wondering if I might ask you not to—"

"You about to ask me if you can go up without my calling Mister Beckett?" The doorman takes off his reading glasses and puts them next to his newspaper with a certain amount of hostility.

"Yes. I—"

"Little late for a social call. You a one-man surprise party?"

Shit, who is this guy? "No, but I'm a friend."

"Never seen you before. Can't be that much of a friend."

"I work with his daughter."

"Don't look a cop to me." He leans forward slightly to stare at Castle's feet. "No cop I know'd wear those Italian shoes. Even if they could afford them, which they can't."

"Consultant. I'm a consultant to the NYPD, and Kate Beckett's my partner."

"I know who you are. You write those books. Covers have that silhouette of Katie in the altogether. I've known her since they moved in. First-grader in pigtails. I was standing right here when she argued with her Mom, may she rest in peace, about why she should be allowed to have a Wonder Woman lunch box. Don't appreciate your taking liberties."

God, a six-year-old in pigtails with a super-heroine lunchbox. She must have been adorable. "That's not really her on the covers, you know, it's—"

"People figure it is. People like me."

"That's all the publisher's doing. Thinks it sells copies, whereas I think the stories do that. I have nothing but respect for her, nothing." That's not strictly true. He completely respects her, but there are many, many, many other things he has for her, some of which involve visions of both of them in the altogether, as the doorman so quaintly put it.

"Got your name on the cover. Letters must be three inches tall."

"Again, not my decision. Look, I don't want to wake Jim, which is what will happen if you ring up, right? I thought if I just tapped on his door and he were awake, he'd hear me and let me in. If you're not willing to do that," he waves his phone, "I'll just text him."

"Be my guest. I got orders, you know."

"Right." Right, you baboon reading that rag that masquerades as a newspaper. He glowers as he types. "Hi, Jim. I'm in your lobby and wonder if I could come up for a moment. Nothing to worry about, I promise, but I'd really like to speak with you in person if possible." He clicks send and waits, carefully avoiding the baboon's glare.

A minute later both participants in the Great Lobby Standoff jump when the desk phone rings. "The Century," the doorman says. "Oh, Mister Beckett. Mmhmm. Right, sure, I'll send him up."

Castle manufactures an impassive expression while mentally high-fiving himself.

"Go on," the doorman says, jerking a thumb towards the elevator. "But if I see that stop anywhere but eight your life won't be worth what I paid for this paper."

Whatever you paid for that crappy paper is too much, Castle thinks, but nods and gets in the elevator. When he steps off on the eighth floor he sees Jim's head sticking out from a partially opened door. Beckett's father silently beckons him.

"Evening, Jim," Castle says, extending his hand.

"Evening's long gone, Rick," he replies, moving back a few steps so that Castle can come in.

"That's true," he says, feeling like a 15-year-old boy who's been caught bringing a girl home way past her curfew. Except in this case the girl isn't here, she's where he wishes he were. "Very nice," he says, looking around the handsome living room with one entire wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

"Thanks. So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Whoa, don't mince words, counselor. "Um, it's about Kate. Your daughter."

"Kind of figured," Jim says, taking a seat in an armchair and gesturing to Castle to take one that's angled next to it.

Oh, hell. Might as well take the direct approach, too. Direct if censored. "She texted me a little while ago. Apparently she spilled the coffee beans on the floor and couldn't pick them up, so she asked me to come up there, make her coffee and keep her company. Her exact words." Some of them.

"That's promising."

"It is?" Well, that slipped right out.

"I've spent the last two weeks up at the cabin with her, and I left her alone about six or seven hours ago and came back home. She kicked me to the curb, or what passes for a curb on a dirt road, and said, 'I'm thirty-one years old and can take care of myself.' Her exact words." He smiles gently. "Apparently that's not entirely true. I'd delighted that she called you."

"Texted, actually."

"Texted you. So you spoke to her?"

"Well, no, I um, texted her back. Said I'd come and she texted back that she was going to sleep." And a few other things in between that her father need not know about. "The thing is, I don't know where your cabin is and she seemed really lonely and coffee-deprived and I thought if I could leave now I'd be there when she woke up in the morning and, you know, give her coffee. So I thought," he stops to cough. "I thought if you could give me the directions I could go."

Jim is leveling him with a look that's suspiciously familiar, even though his eyes are not hazel and he doesn't have eyelashes that make Castle weak at the knees. "Right."

"Keep her company. That's what friends are for."

"Uh huh."

"I wasn't sure if, didn't know if you'd be up this late so I just took a chance. Coming over."

"Haven't slept too well since Katie got shot."

"Me either."

There's a long silence. "Probably will if I know you're looking after her."

"Really?" Castle hopes that didn't sound as much like a squeak as he suspects it was.

"Really. You're good for her. Make her laugh."

"Best medicine, they say."

"Yup. Hold on, I'll get you the directions. You want something for the road? Coffee?"

"No, no, I'm good," Castle says, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. "Got plenty of coffee up there, then?"

"Oh, yeah."

Did Jim just wink? He disappears down a hallway and comes back not long after with neatly-written instructions on a sheet of white paper. "Rick? It's been tough for her. She's still in pain and she can't do much yet. It makes her, well, I think you can guess."

"Cranky."

"You could say."

"Thanks for the heads up. I'll be going, then."

"Let me know how she's doing, will you? I'm not going to get anything but 'fine, Dad,' from her."

"Will do." He folds the paper in half, shoves it in his pocket and stands up. "Thanks so much, Jim."

"Thank you, Rick," he says, accompanying him to the door and giving his shoulder a quick squeeze.

It's 3:40 a.m. when Castle pulls up to the front porch and cuts the engine. Sunrise is at 5:25, but it'll begin to get light before then. He spent most of the drive up here trying to decide what to do. Stay in the car until it's full daylight? Sit on the porch until he hears her moving around? Or go in the house before that, using the key that Jim told him was in the tool box on a shelf in the garage? If he did that he could sweep up the beans and have coffee ready before she got out of bed. Maybe the delicious smell of it would wake her up, how cool would that be?

He rolls down the window. Wow, the air is great, rich and piney and a little loamy. And it's so dark. There's almost no light pollution here, so the stars stand out. It's all making him a little sleepy. He'll stay in here for a bit. The seat is really comfy.

Something wakes him up, he doesn't know what, but his head had been lolling and he'd drooled onto his shirt. He simultaneously smack his lips and rubs his eyes and realizes that the sun must have been up for at least half an hour. Shit. What if she's awake already? He gets out of the car, closes the door as quietly as possible, and creeps to the garage. He finds the key with no problem, tiptoes to the back door, unlocks it and walks into the kitchen.

She wasn't kidding. The empty bag is still on the counter and the coffee beans are everywhere. The broom is on the floor. Before he sweeps up, he'll start some coffee. Aha, there it is, another bag of Jamaican Blue in the freezer. The grinder is next to the toaster and he worries about how loud it is. How can he muffle it? Ah, his shirt. He peels it off and wraps it around the small appliance; not bad at all, really cuts down the noise. He could be a Boy Scout with the ideas he's having up here in the wilderness. He measures the ground beans and the water, and starts the coffee.

The broom is in the middle of the floor, probably exactly where she'd dropped it the night before. He picks it up and starts sweeping methodically, getting a nice rhythm going as he moves from the kitchen area past the rustic dining table and into the living room. It's warm work, and he's glad that he'd taken his shirt off. It's when he reaches the far corner that he startles. There she is, standing eight feet away, slightly bent over, wearing nothing but a pair of panties, a Rosie the Riveter tee shirt, one pink fuzzy sock, and a shocked expression.

"Castle? What are you doing?"

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

He freezes, broom in hand. In the space between two far-more-rapid-than-normal heartbeats he processes what she is and isn't wearing; that she's not pointing a gun at him; that she looks frail, and that she might not fully remember her mini textathon of a few hours ago. "Uh, picking up the beans you spilled."

"Oh. What? Oh. You're not wearing a shirt." He's not wearing a shirt better than she'd imagined even in her smuttiest dreams.

"You're not wearing any pants."

She reacts by looking down, blushing, turning as fast as she can—which is very slowly—and taking a few halting steps towards her bedroom.

He drops the broom and it clatters on the floor. "Kate! Kate! Wait! Beckett." He catches up to her and wraps his large hand softly around her sharp elbow. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that. It just popped out. I hardly even noticed that you didn't have pants on." He feels her stiffen under his touch, but he plows on. "I mean, I didn't notice the way it sounded that I noticed." At that, he feels her body soften a little. "It's going to be really hot today. I heard. On the radio, you know, driving up. And it is already. Quite, quite warm. So it's good not to have pants on. Or a shirt. Like me. I don't mean that you shouldn't be wearing a shirt." Oh, if only she were armed, he could just shoot himself right now.

During his verbal stumbling, she has gradually turned so that she's facing him, and she looks confused. "Where's your shirt?"

"My shirt?" He has to think a moment. "Oh. Wrapped around the coffee grinder."

She looks even more confused. "Why?"

"I was afraid the noise of it would disturb you, so I used my shirt as a muffler. It worked, right? Didn't it? Please tell me that's not what woke you up."

"No, I smelled coffee. First I thought I was crazy. But I knew I really did."

Her nose is twitching. She looks like the world's cutest bunny. He wonders if there's such a thing as carrot-flavored coffee. "You did. Do. Smell coffee."

"I thought my Dad came back."

"Your Dad?"

"He's not supposed to until Saturday, but isn't it Monday today? But who else would be making coffee?"

Okay, so zero memory of the late-night texting? But she's not mad at him for being here, so that's something. "I would. I'm making it. And it must be ready by now, so let's have some. You want coffee, don't you?" What a question.

"I'm dying for it."

Should he help her to the kitchen? Does she need to sit down? She looks a little shaky, but he can give her an out. "You want to have it here, or in the kitchen?"

"Maybe here. Just for now."

Oh, he knows what she's doing. Doesn't want him to see her walking so slowly. Doesn't want him to think she's weak. "Great. I'll go get it." He's at the coffeemaker and about to reach for the mugs when she calls out.

"Castle?"

He takes a few steps so he can see her. "Yeah?"

"You have to mix it with decaf. I can't have it straight yet. Sorry."

"No apologies necessary. Won't take me long to make." It doesn't, but it feels like it. He's all fidgets, trying to work out how to talk her. Until 25 days ago it had been very easy. Still, she hasn't thrown him out. And why the hell isn't Josh here? Happy as he is that he's not. The decaf, awful as it must be, is finally ready and Castle takes a few steps sideways again. "How much decaf, how much real?"

"Fifty-fifty's good."

He carries out the mugs, gives one to her, and is about to sit down when he sees a little wood-and-rush stool in the corner. He picks it up and positions it between their chairs. "There. Perfect coffee table, Beckett."

"Yup." She takes a tentative sip, then a long swallow that results in two things. The first is an exquisite expression on her face, the second is a sound that's new to him, a protracted, quiet moan that covers two octaves and a wide palette and is the most erotic thing ever to reach his ears. He's unsuccessfully ignoring it, and almost sure that she's unaware that she's making any sound at all, certainly not an X-rated one. He forces himself to look away before she opens her eyes.

"Mmm, this is so good, Castle. Thank you."

"You're welcome." And thank you, Kate. Thank you for that moan that I can live on for a long, long time.

She takes another healthy gulp and pushes herself up to a standing position. "Gotta get something."

When he sees what this is costing her, he jumps up. "I'm happy to do that. Just point me in the right direction."

It's not the death glare to which she has subjected him on more than one occasion, but it's pretty ferocious. Not pretty. Ferocious and beautiful. "I'm not an _invalid_ , Castle. I can do it myself. Been coping on my own since yesterday." She turns and heads for the kitchen at about a tenth her usual pace.

Coping? Au contraire, he thinks, exhausting most of his French vocabulary. If those texts were her coping, well. Jim had warned him but still, it's almost too much to bear, this watching her, and when she finally reaches the doorway he gets the mugs and goes to join her. She's gripping the counter with one hand and trying to open a pill bottle with the other. "Want a refill, Beckett?" he asks brightly.

"In a minute." She needs her pain killers, but doesn't want him to see, so she moves as close as she can with the hope that she's blocking his view. She can't get the freaking top off, must have jammed it back on last night. Last night. Did she even take any last night? She must have. Couldn't have gotten through the night without it. She'd pulled something when she tried to pick up the beans that she'd spilled. The beans. Oh, Castle was sweeping up the beans. How did he know about the beans? Oh, because he saw them when he came in? Why did he come? She can't work it out at the same time that she's working on this damn bottle.

Castle pours another coffee for her and puts a safe distance on the left. She's struggling so with that bottle top. The hell with it, he doesn't care if she bites his head off. "Looks like that's stuck, and I've got both hands free. How about if I give it a go?" She doesn't say no, and though she doesn't say yes, either, he figures that her letting go of the meds is her way of giving him permission. As soon as he has the top off, she grabs the bottle from his hand, pours two tablets in her hand, and slaps the bottle on the counter. She reaches out for her mug and washes down her meds with half the scalding hot coffee. Doesn't even flinch.

"Would you like some breakfast? I could make some toast and eggs."

"No."

"Should you maybe put something in your stomach with those pi—"

"I'm fine, Castle. Stop mother henning me."

"Okay, sorry. Hey, how about this? Why don't we sit out on the porch for a while, enjoy the fresh air before it gets too hot?"

"Yeah, okay. Just gonna rest here a minute."

While she does that, he opens the fridge, extracts a cantaloupe, cuts it into bite-size chunks, and puts them in a bowl. Surely she won't object. It's not as if he's going to force feed her. From the corner of his eye he sees her straighten up. Good, the painkillers must be beginning to do their job. "I'll just take our mugs," he says, before she can protest, taking both in one hand and the fruit in the other. He pushes open the back door with his butt and stays there until she can get through. "You want a rocking chair, or a straight-backed one?"

"Rocking. I like to rock."

"You've rocked as long as I've known you, Beckett."

That gets him a smile. Meds are definitely working. He'll rock quietly until she's up to more. Maybe he can persuade her to eat a little. The silence at least is not strained, but oddly peaceful. He closes his eyes. He'd been up most of the night, and was drifting off, maybe did drift off, but then she giggled and he nearly shot out of the chair.

"Hey, Castle."

"Oh. Hey, Beckett. Sorry if I dropped off."

"That's okay, 'cause even though you dropped off you dropped in. Get it?" She claps her hands and laughs.

Beckett's laughing. Oh, the meds. "I do! Good one. I'm going to get some water. Want some?"

"Nooooo, I just want cofffeeeee!"

He doesn't really need water, he wants to check the label on her prescription. While he pours a glass, he steals a look. Shit. One pill, twice a day. She just took two, he'd seen her. And he bets that she'd done the same thing last night, since her father hadn't been here to dish them out. Bernstingle had told him it wouldn't hurt her, but still. He's going to have to keep an eye on this, control it somehow. He walks out to rejoin her.

"Hi, Castle!" She's beaming.

"Hi," he says, sinking down on the rocker.

"Wanna help me take off my sock?" She's stretching her foot towards him.

"Of course. I'll pull it right off, promise it won't hurt." He takes hold of the fuzzy toe, gives it a tug, and lays the sock on the gray-painted floor of the porch. "I'll leave it here until we go back in."

She's still smiling. "Ya know what?"

He'll play along. Happily. "No, what?"

"I'm so sexcited that you came!"

The water comes right out of his nose and lands on his lap, except for one large splash that hits him in the middle of his chest. "What?" He hadn't intended to ask, but she's right there with her bare legs and her little Rosie the Riveter tee shirt under which she doesn't have a bra. He's trying not to notice, truly, but Mother Nature won't let him. Mother Nature's actually encouraging him.

"I said, 'I'm so sexcited that you came'."

Now he's trying to formulate some kind of bland response, but his voice isn't working at all.

"Cat got your tongue, Castle?"

No, the cat hasn't got my tongue but I'd love it if you did. And I had yours. He coughs. "No, nope. No." He grabs the bowl of fruit and holds it out to her. "How about some of this?"

She stares at it for several seconds before she raises her head and looks straight at him. An odd light has come into her eyes. "Did you cut up this melon?"

"I did, just a while ago. Looks good, doesn't it? Have some."

"Shouldn't you have made balls, Castle? It's a melon. I know I would love your balls. Oops! That's supposed to be a secret!"

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks to all the readers, reviewers, favoriters, and followers. You brighten the day. Special thanks to Madelynn one, whose typo "sexcited" in her review of the previous chapter led to my adopting the word, with her permission. I'll be on the road for a few days so probably won't be able to post the next chapter until Friday.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

He doesn't know what to say or where to look. He's trying not to think about his balls, which isn't easy, given what she just said and the way she's fixed on him—and he's trying to keep his eyes on her face, which also isn't easy, given how she's dressed. Or not dressed. Almost undressed. She must have had that tee shirt since she was a teenager because it's faded and almost see-through from countless washings. It's probably the softest thing she owns, which would explain why she's wearing it: it sits gently on her skin and her wounds and bandages.

Don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look.

Still holding the bowl of cantaloupe pieces, he's belatedly aware that he and Kate haven't even exchanged hellos yet. He hasn't asked her how she's feeling, although that's hardly necessary now. Still, he should.

"Geez, Beckett, where are my manners!" he says, sitting straight up in his chair, which moves him a bit farther away from her than he had been. "I haven't asked how you're doing. You know, healing. Mending." He's already running low, short on inspiration because she's so distracting. And he's feeling guilty about his less than pure thoughts for a woman who was shot barely three weeks ago and has a boyfriend. Who is not here, the scumbag.

"I'm fine, Castle." She's smiling and she looks so relaxed—giddy, really. He knows it's the drugs, but it makes her even more beautiful. She runs her open palm lightly over her collarbone. "See my shirt? This is Rosie the Riveter, did you know that?" She pauses, apparently waiting for his answer.

"Yes, yes I do. From the Second World War. Great, uh, great icon."

Beckett beams as if he's her pet pupil who has just responded correctly to the toughest question in class. "She's my hero. She's strong. Look at her muscles. I'm not very strong right now, but I used to be and I'm gonna be again 'cuz I do my PT. Hey! That rhymes! Be and PT!" She giggles and leans steeply towards him, her body language that of someone who's had at least one drink too many. "You're really strong, aren't you Castle? I can all see your muscles. They're so big. Let me feel your bicep."

When she wraps her fingers around his upper arm and squeezes, he needs every particle of his self-control to help him sit still and keep his mouth shut. He offers up a prayer to what's her name, the Greek goddess of restraint. Who is she? Sophrosyne, that's it. "Help me out here, Sophrosyne," he pleads silently.

"Wow, I could never arm wrestle you," she says, squeezing again. Her face is about two inches away. "You'd beat the pants off me, 'cept I'm not wearing any. Remember? No pants." More giggling from her, and he's almost choking. "Do you want to wrestle later? Not arm wrestle, wrestle wrestle. It would be very sexciting. We can do it! See? It says so here on my shirt. WE CAN DO IT. Right? Only not in my shirt. We would be naked."

That's his cue to leap to his feet, preferably without knocking her over. "I think what we can do right now is eat breakfast," he says, scrambling to get to the kitchen. He's seldom felt so clumsy. "Sorry!" he yelps as the screen door slams shut behind him. He yanks open the refrigerator door and pulls out a carton of eggs, the butter dish, and a glass that's holding some fresh herbs in a bit of water. "I'll make an omelet," he shouts over his shoulder, and sees that she has gotten up and is standing unsteadily on the porch. She's wobbling like a tree in a cartoon before it topples over, and he drops everything on the counter to run to her. He takes hold of her left arm. "Are you all right, Kate? Do you want to come back inside?"

She tilts into him, and presses her forehead against his neck. "Wanna go to bed. Sleepy."

She's only been up for a little while. It's the pills, then, knocking her out. "Okay, we'll go back in and you can take a nap. Let me know when you wake up and then we'll eat, how's that?"

"Nope."

"Nope? What do you mean, 'Nope'? Gourmet cook here, may I remind you? I've been told by discriminating types that my omelets are irresistible."

She's smacking him lightly on the pecs. "'sistible. You're 'sistible. Not your omelets, you. You have to take me to bed now."

Oh, dear God, what he'd give to hear her say that when she actually knows what she's saying, and when she's not so frail that he's afraid if he holds her tight she'll break. "All right. Just take my arm and I'll have you there in no time."

"Doncha wanna pick me up, Castle?" She tosses her head back so she's looking up into his eyes. "I'm not heavy. Promise I'm not. Much faster to get me into bed. You've wanted to get me into bed forever and ever and ever."

He has to take care of this right away. "Okay. I'll just, I'll just carry you to your room and you'll be off to dreamland." Dreamland? God, almighty, what he's reduced to. Dreamland. Pathetic. He shakes his head to clear it, then bends over, slips one arm under her knees and the other around her back and scoops her up. She wasn't kidding: she weighs nothing. "Can you grab the door for me, please?"

She does, and immediately after it feels as though she's out—until he walks into her room she starts talking. "Just like when we get married."

What? What? He hadn't intended to say it out loud, but he does. "What?"

"Married. You're gonna carry me cross the threshold like this, aren'tcha? When we get married. Go on our moneyhoon." She giggles again. "Not moneyhoon, I mean honeymoon, even though you have a lot of money. We'll go on a honeymoon."

Is he asleep in the car outside? Because he's pretty sure this isn't really happening. His mind is slipping. "Mmmm." Oh. There's her bed, the sheets still rumpled from last night. He sets her down on the side she hadn't slept on, where the linens are still smooth. "I'll just straighten these out for you so you can be comfortable." And then she takes him by surprise, reaching up from her perch on the edge of the bed and hauling him down next to her. For someone still so weak, she has a hell of a grip.

"This is your side," she says, patting the far corner of the mattress with her free hand. "Do you like to be on this side? Cuz I like that one. Where I was before. When you came and I woke up. But now you're here and we can go to bed. It's very sexciting to be in bed with you, Castle." And with that she slumps over, sound asleep, and looking like a goddess. Very gently he maneuvers her onto her side of the bed, and once again calls on the unBeckettlike goddess Sophrosyne to keep himself from yielding to temptation and kissing her. He looks longingly at her and tiptoes out, closing the door behind him.

Except for the brief, pre-dawn snooze he'd had in his car, he has been awake for more than 30 hours and desperately needs a shower. Now. Preferably cold. Extremely cold. The cabin's only bathroom opens off the same hallway as the two bedrooms. It's next to Jim's, but there's a large storage closet between it and Kate's, so the noise of water running shouldn't disturb her. He strips off his pants, boxers, socks, and sneakers, finds a large, clean towel in a big wicker basket, and takes a restorative shower. He even washes his hair in her cherry-scented shampoo, which necessitates another blast of lust-repressing cold water. After wrapping the towel around his waist, he scrounges up a disposable razor from the back of the medicine cabinet and shaves contemplatively in front of the mirror.

Kate's under the influence, but she's been speaking to _him_ , coming on to _him_. It's his name she's using, not Davidson's. So what's going on? Is Josh out of the picture, or is she just sore at Doctor Motorcycle Boy for not being here? How far, how much bending, does the unconscious do, anyway? Or is he just a convenient substitute until the cardiologist returns? Shit. He has to regulate her meds. Make sure she eats right. Does her exercises. Sleeps. Getting her back on her feet is what's important, not his feelings. Will she even remember any of this? And if she does, how will she react? Will she be embarrassed, ticked off, what? Will she make him go home? He's not sure he could bear it.

He'd been so happy, and now he's mopey. He drapes the towel over a bar to get dressed when it hits him: he has no clothes. None except what he'd been wearing since yesterday, anyway. He's averse to putting on the same boxers, so he'll just go commando under his Levi's. His tee shirt is in a wrinkled heap on the kitchen table and not only smells strongly of coffee but would be in aromatic competition with his newly cherry-scented hair. He'd borrow a shirt from Kate's father, except the guy is about half his size. He can go shirtless for today, can't he? No harm in that. Besides, she loved his shirtless state. Would it be so terrible if he indulged in this just until tomorrow? Of course it wouldn't. Tomorrow he'll go into town, wherever and whatever it is, and buy something. For today, well. He looks hard at his reflection. "Eat my dust, Davidson."

Back in the kitchen, he chops dill and thyme for the omelets, splits open some English muffins to toast, and refills but does not start the coffeemaker. Once she wakes up, he can have everything ready in less than five minutes. Until she does, he'll sit out on the porch and read. He's on chapter three of _The Brothers Karamazov_ , which he's ashamed to admit he's never attempted, when he hears her call his name. He marks his place with a paper napkin and goes inside. She's standing in almost exactly the same spot where he's first seen her a few hours ago, only this time she's minus the pink sock and plus a cell phone. She's got it in a choke hold in her hand, and a look of abject horror on her face. "Castle? What the hell are these texts?"

TBC

 **A/N** I apologize for the long gap between chapters, but work and family obligations intervened. I'm back on my more manageable schedule now.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

The instant the question leaves her mouth—"Castle? What the hell are these texts?"—he feels the rock and the hard place crushing the air out of him. It had occurred to him less than two hours ago, while he was shaving, that she might eventually remember having sent the texts, but he'd figured that he'd have time to work up a response. What he hadn't considered was the all but inevitable: that she'd find them on her phone long before any memory surfaced. Goddammit, he's an idiot. Why hadn't he sneaked into her room while she was asleep and deleted them? Too late now. That ship hasn't only sailed, it's hit a freaking iceberg.

"What texts?" he asks, feigning innocence and hanging onto the hope, like a man with a waterlogged _RMS Titanic_ life jacket, that he can talk his way out of this. That there are still enough drugs in her system that she'll believe whatever story he's going to have to spin in the next few seconds.

"These texts," she says, holding up her phone with the screen facing him. It's hard to tell which is trembling more, her hand or her voice.

"Let me see that." He closes the gap between them in four strides, and takes the phone from her. "Which texts? Is there a whole sequence? I'll go back to the start." He does, then hits delete and squints at the screen as if he were trying to break an arcane code. "You mean this one from your dad? Saying he got home safely and will see you Saturday?"

"Castle!"

"What?" Thank you, mother, thank you, he says in his head. Thank you for bringing me up in the theater. Thank you for letting me learn by watching you act. Thank you for passing along enough of your talent that I can manage to sound convincing as I fib to Beckett. Bless DNA. Bless genetic predispositions.

"You know what. Where are my texts?"

He looks at the phone again. "I don't see any. Oh, except one that says, 'Thanks, Dad. Love you.' Why are you upset about that? Short and sweet."

"Give me my phone."

He shrugs. "Of course. Here you go." He puts it in her outstretched hand. "Still don't know what this kerfuffle is all about." Uh-oh. Kerfuffle might have been a give away. Her eyes are narrowing. Her nostrils might be flaring a little, too, unless it's a trick of the light in here. Bright light, very bright. Which is not how he would describe himself at present. Dim bulb is more like it. Kerfuffle. God, what a bad choice of words. Word.

"There were hideous texts on here, Castle, and they've disappeared."

"Hideous? You wrote hideous texts? I don't believe it."

"I saw them. They're not here now, but they were. I saw them."

"How can your texts be hideous, Beckett? They're in Helvetica Neue, very clean. Nice font. Excellent. Looks so modern." This had better be buying him some time. He'd had to dig deep to come up with that.

"I'm not talking about what they looked like, it's what they said. I said."

"Wrote."

"Fine, wrote."

"Typed, actually."

"Castle!"

"Well, as a father myself I can say that I'd have been really happy to get that sweet little text from you."

"Sit down."

"You want me to sit down? Why?"

"So I can talk to you."

"Okay, that's good. I think it's a little hot out there, though." Not as hot as it is in here, of course. Sizzling in here.

"We'll stay inside." She walks slowly to the sofa, and bends equally slowly until she's seated.

"You want coffee, Beckett?" That could eat up a couple of minutes, very handy. He could organize his thoughts, or at least come up with one.

"I don't want coffee, Castle. I just want you."

Oh, if only. He looks at her from the corner of his eye. Dear God, is she blushing? "Mmmm?"

"I mean, I meant, I just want to speak to you."

Definitely blushing. He joins her on the sofa, at a decorous distance. It's not easy, especially since she's still wearing almost nothing. He wonders if she'll notice. More like when, not if. "Okay. What can I do for you?"

"I couldn't have written, uh, typed, those."

"Those? The phantom texts?"

"They didn't sound like me. I hope. No, they didn't. I wouldn't have said—I might have thought that. But…" Her voice trails off.

She looks both miserable and furious, and he's not sure what to do. Before he can say anything, she straightens up a little and turns towards him.

"Wait a minute. Did you do this? With my phone? Put them there?"

"Huh?" He's legitimately confused.

"Is this a joke? While I was asleep you stole my phone and typed in these embarrassing texts? Did you think that was funny?"

He's often willing to take one for the team, but not this time. Absolutely not. "No. I didn't. I did not sneak into your room and compose embarrassing texts."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying." He kind of was before, but not now. "I would never do that, Beckett. I swear." He might delete them—did delete them—but she didn't ask about that.

She's looking hard at him, and he's trying to hold her glance, unwaveringly. He needs to stave her off a little longer. "I was out on the porch reading _The Brothers Karamazov_ the whole time you were napping." He points towards the screen door. "See? It's on the table next to the chair. It's pretty hard not to tell the truth when you're in the middle of that, you know, all the debates about morality."

She's still looking at him. Apparently his Dostoevskian interlude hasn't worked its magic. "Your phone. Where's your phone?"

"Uh, my pocket, I guess. Why?"

"Hand it over."

"Hand it over?"

"It's a simple request."

"Doesn't sound like a request."

"Fine. By the power vested in me by the New York City Police Department, I command you to surrender your phone."

"Geez." He reaches into his back pocket, uses two fingers to extract his phone, and passes it to her.

She tries to open it. "It's password protected."

"Of course it is."

"Password, Castle."

"I don't have to give it to you. I'm positive that there are federal statutes about that."

She stabs in four numbers and looks a tiny bit smug as the phone unlocks. "You need better protection."

"How did you know my password?"

"Oh, please. It had to be Alexis's birthday. Duh."

She's right. He'd wanted to change it to Beckett's badge number, but it was one digit too long, so he'd left it. "You're right. Duh."

When she clicks on his texts, her eyes grow wider than he's ever seen. He wonders if she'd read all of them earlier, or just some? There are six. Two from her, then one from him in response, then three more from her in quick succession. She'd stopped only because the meds knocked her out. So, it could have been worse, from her point of view, anyway. He'd have liked to get twice as many as he had. He's memorized all of them and can't decide which is his favorite. "Nighty night" is so adorable, but so is "We have a song!" Not to mention the woman-eating mosquito one. Although, seriously, what she's said to him since he arrived is far more adorable, and entertaining. And funny. And sexy. Balls. Sexciting. Oh God, sexciting. If only she knew. He wants to replay in his mind her last drug-induced monologue, the one when he was carrying her to her room, but he doesn't dare. Not in front of her. She'd read him like a book. Like _The Brothers Karamazov_ which she, unlike him, undoubtedly finished years ago and then reread. In Russian. Whoa, she's standing up. "Beckett? Where are you going?"

"You have to leave," she says, averting her head so that he can't see her face.

He may not be able to see her expression, but he can hear, and what he hears is pain. Not the physical pain that she's been living with for weeks, but emotional pain. Distress. So she's kicking him out? No. No no no no no no. He won't go. He pushes down the rising panic and keeps his voice light, once more mentally thanking his mother. "Can't leave, Beckett," he says cheerfully as he gets up from the sofa. "We haven't even had breakfast, and I promised you an omelet. I know I suggested toast a while ago and I hope you don't mind, but I switched to English muffins when I saw that you have raspberry jam in the fridge. It fills all those nooks and crannies so yummily."

Castle heads for the kitchen before she can object. If he works in just the right spot he can watch her, see where she's going and what she's doing. He flips the switch on the coffeemaker, starts the toaster, and turns on the gas under the omelet pan. He'd assumed she was going to her bedroom or the bathroom, but she's moving in the direction of the porch. Maybe she's going to sit down there, and wait for him to bring her breakfast. The pan is hot now and he's just about to tip the beaten eggs into it when he realizes that she has gone down the three porch steps and is going—where? The pond? She's walking to the pond. He quickly turns off the stove, puts the bowl of eggs on the counter, and takes off.

"Kate!"

Her arms are folded across her chest. She's not stopping.

"Kate!" He catches up to her but doesn't touch her. "Why are you going to the pond? It's time to eat. Come back. Please."

She's looking straight ahead and walking slowly, undeterred. "I can swim. I'm going to swim away."

That does it. He has to make a move. "You know, Beckett, much as I'd pay a huge amount of money to see you in a wet tee shirt, this is not a good idea. You have to eat some breakfast." She's still inching her way to the water. "You wanted to talk to me. I'll talk to you. About anything. I will. Or not, if you don't want to anymore." Still walking. She must be exhausted by now. "Okay, you've driven me to it. I've done this once before, and I'll do it again." And in one easy move he scoops her into his arms. "I'm carrying you to breakfast. You must weigh less than the hen that laid the eggs we're about to have."

She's silent. He is astonished again by how light she is, and by how silky her legs are. "Let's eat in the kitchen, okay? The omelets will be ready in two minutes, tops."

"Bathroom," she says, about two decibels above a whisper.

"You want to eat in the bathroom? Funny place for that, but sure. I'll bring in a couple of chairs."

"I want to go to the bathroom and wash my face first, Castle, before breakfast. While you cook."

Okay, that's progress, huge progress. They're on the porch, and he sets her down, opening the door so that she can go in ahead of him. "I'll do the eggs now. Two minutes, all right?"

"Yeah." While she creeps across the smooth wooden floor in her bare feet, she thinks about what he said when he picked her up. 'I've done this once before, and I'll do it again.' When has he ever carried her in his arms like that? Even when he was helping her out of her apartment after the bomb last year, he didn't carry her. And yet when she was cradled against his chest—his bare, massive chest—just now it felt so familiar. How could that be? What had he meant? She's made it into the bathroom, and turns the water on in the basin. That's when she sees it. Them. On the doorknob, inside. His boxers. On the floor right below are his socks and sneakers. She stretches out her arm to feel the towel on the bar: it's damp. He must have taken a shower while she was sleeping. He hadn't brought a bag. She hasn't seen one, and she would have. He must have left the city in such a rush to get here that he hadn't packed anything. She closes her eyes. Oh, God. He's commando. He's naked under those perfectly-fitting jeans, in the very next room.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you very much for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following. It's such a wonderful treat for me in the hot weather, which I dislike!


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She can't think about it, about him being one well-worn, blue-denim layer away from total nudity while he's cooking out there. Where her mother used to cook. Maybe thinking about her mother will keep her from imagining Castle naked. Right. So, Castle, partially clad—but that is one hell of a chest. STOP IT, RIGHT NOW—is standing exactly where she and her father had had coffee yesterday afternoon. It was yesterday, wasn't it? Castle's right. She has to eat. Did she have dinner last night? She can't remember, doesn't know when she last put anything in her stomach, other than the magical coffee he'd made earlier, which she'd had with her meds. She's drying her face, not with Castle's towel, though she's sorely tempted, as she goes over this again. Something terrible is niggling at the back of her brain. Texts. Pain killers. Food. Wait, was there melon? Hadn't Castle offered her melon and she'd turned it down? Why did she do that? Oh, oh, pain killers but no food this morning _or_ last night?

Moving to the open door of the bathroom, she calls out, attempting to sound casual, "Castle? Were there dishes in the sink or the dishwasher when you got here?"

Odd question, he thinks, but he's also pretty sure that she wants a simple answer, not a why-are-you-asking response. "Nothing but an empty mug by the sink."

"Thanks. Be there in a sec." The niggling gets louder, scratchier, and more insistent. She hadn't had any food for almost 24 hours. She hadn't had any coffee after her father left, either, because she had, God help her, spilled the beans. She buries her face in the towel again. But she had to have taken her medicine before bedtime, so she just had water, hence the mug in the sink. Nothing solid. Nothing nutritious. Had that made her loopy? Turned her into that wack job who sent those unforgettable—unforgettable now that she's read them with a clear head, even though she doesn't remember writing them—and mortifying texts, ones that burn in her brain her like some mutant eternal flame? And why has Castle been so nice? He hasn't teased her about them; it's obvious now that he deleted them from her phone when she'd handed it to him. To, to, to what? To protect her? From herself? He replied to only one of them. The Castle of the past would have come right back at her, every time, but not now, and his text hadn't had even a trace of innuendo. Unlike hers. More than that, he'd come here. He'd come all the way here—he must have driven in the dark—just because she (aided and abetted by those little pills) had asked him to keep her company.

She can't put this off any longer, cowardly as she feels. "Calling Sigmund Freud," she says to herself as she walks to the kitchen. "Put down that cigar and help me out here, Doctor."

"You hungry, Beckett?" Castle has set the little table near the window, and he's putting down two plates on it as she approaches. "You'd better be. See what I made?"

She sits down carefully. "This smells fantastic." Her eyes are on the eggs so she doesn't have to look at him; she's saving her courage for what she needs to say later. "Thank you."

"Gotta fatten you up with my home cooking," he says, nudging her with an elbow before taking the chair opposite hers.

Beckett takes a bite of omelet, chews, and swallows. "Wow." She has two more, and follows them with part of a muffin. "Best thing I've had in ages."

Ecstatic that she's finally eating something, he beams. "How about some fruit with that?" He points his head towards the counter. "There's still plenty of melon in the bowl there."

Oh, the melon. What was it about the melon? She swears there are little bits of cantaloupe pirouetting in her head like the hippos in _Fantasia_. Why can't she think straight? "Sure. Sounds good, Castle."

He almost bounces to the kitchen and back, and offers the bowl to her. "Here you go. Sorry it's not balls, since you like them."

If it were possible for the utterance of one sentence to remove every bit of air from a room, to vacuum seal it and prevent anyone from leaving, this might be it. He freezes. She freezes. She'd been so careful to avoid looking directly at him, but at "balls" their eyes had locked.

"Uh." That's him.

"Uh." That's her.

"You know what?" he asks, his voice skittering upwards to the range of a six-year-old's. "I meant to show you this great photo I took while you were asleep." What? Had he? He's a desperate man calling on desperate measures. Maybe he had taken one of that bird hopping around, it was cute. He'd thought she could identify it for him, since his avian knowledge is pretty much nonexistent. Except about penguins, since Alexis had gone through a serious penguin phase several years ago. They must have gone to see them in the Polar Circle at the Central Park Zoo a hundred times. He shakes his head, pulls his phone out of his pocket, and calls up his photos. "There was this great bird by the porch and I bet you can tell me what it is because I don't know. Total ignoramus about things like that." He holds the phone up to Beckett, screen facing her, just as she had done earlier when she had asked him about the texts. One click and there it should be, his most recent photo. Some kind of bird, with a topknot. Kind of like her ponytail, top-knotty.

Sound? There's sound coming from his phone? His most recent photo is a video? Of what? It's a little muffled, but audible and completely understandable. It's Beckett's voice. "This is your side. Do you like to be on this side? Cuz I like that one. Where I was before. When you came and I woke up. But now you're here and we can go to bed. It's very sexciting to be in bed with you, Castle."

Even with all the writerly skills he possesses, he'd be incapable of describing the expression on her face. Hell, Dickens couldn't have done it. Or Dostoevsky. It's a mixture of horror, shock, surprise, embarrassment, rage, and a just-detectable strain of curiosity. She has a death grip on the phone, and so does he.

"I _slept_ with you? You _slept_ with me?" Her eyes are moving frantically between his face and the blank screen of his phone. She had been ready to apologize about the texting, but not now. Forget that.

"No! No! Never! No, I mean, not that I'd never sleep with you, but we didn't. No. Please give me the phone, Kate. Please."

"You taped me, Castle? What the hell? Why would you do that?"

"I didn't."

"Sure as hell did. That's my voice, and it's on your phone. I don't think your phone, smart as yours obviously is, is capable of deciding to tape something all by itself."

"It didn't. I had to have butt-taped that. I didn't know it. Stop the phone. Turn it off."

Her eyes are so fiery they could detonate something. "Why should I turn it off? When did you take it out of your pocket, huh, Castle? After you got in bed with me? Is there a video of us in my bed? Are there pictures of whatever I called it, sexcitement?"

"I never got in bed with you. I—"

"Will you listen to yourself? You just said, recorded for all the world to hear, for all posterity, that you were in bed with me."

"No, Kate, listen to yourself. You were the one who said that, that we were in bed. I didn't say a word. You want to know what happened? I'll tell you."

"I don't want you to." She's trying to push her chair away from the table and still hold on to his phone.

"We're staying right here. I'll let you have my phone, but you're going to have to hear me out. Give me two, three minutes. You can stay on that side of the table, and I'll be here. But I'm going to explain and you're going to pay attention. You owe me that."

"I don't owe you a Goddamn thing, Castle."

That hurts so much he feels as if he's the one that had taken a bullet from a Mark 11 rifle. He's trying to be understanding, knows that she's confused, but. "You owe me a call, Beckett. One phone call. I waited twenty-five days for it."

He's right. He's right. "Okay." That's all she can manage for now.

"But since we're here in the same place, a phone call is irrelevant. So I'll give you a pass, though there's a certain horrible irony, considering the part the phone is playing here." He stops to catch his breath. He can't pause, though: he'd lose his nerve or his temper, and either one would be disastrous. "You want anything? Water?"

She's feeling watery. It's the last thing she needs. "No."

"When I got those texts from you last night—" Jesus, only last night? "When I got the first one I didn't know what to make of it. Couldn't believe it was you because it didn't sound like you at all. And then a few minutes later the second one came and I realized that if was you. You if you were drunk. But I knew you couldn't be, wouldn't be drinking if you were still recovering from, you know."

"Being shot." She's looking out the window. Her voice is low and emotionless.

"Yes, from being shot. From coming back from the dead. And then it occurred to me that you must be on some powerful pain meds, had probably accidentally taken too much. I did a couple of minutes of research on that." Yeah, telling her about Bernstingle, consulting a doctor she doesn't know about her case? No way. "Then I was positive that that was what was going on. And I figured you must be by yourself, because if someone had been here with you they'd never have let that happen." Like that son-of-a-bitch cardiologist, for starters. Castle wonders if he can sue Davidson for malpractice over this. "So I figured I'd better get up here right away and make sure that you were all right. That's when I texted you back. I was worried." Maybe he could be a little gentler. "And you were without coffee, so who knows what kind of beast I might have encountered when I knocked on the door, right?"

He did that? For her? Because he was worried? Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. Just say "right." "Right."

"Before I was even halfway here—" no way he's mentioning the stop at her father's for directions, either. He'll hurry, and maybe she won't wonder how he'd known where she was. "Uh, by halfway, you'd texted me three more times. But you said you were going to sleep and I got here before dawn so I waited to come in. And you know the rest. Well, no, you don't. Obviously, or I wouldn't be having to do this. Suffice it to say that you were in pain when I saw you and you came to the kitchen and took your medicine. Didn't want me to help you. Too proud, Kate, to let me do that little thing."

That hurt. She winces, and closes her eyes.

"We went to the porch to have our coffee and in less time than it took you to drink half a cup you were talking. Talking the way you did when you were texting."

Shit, what had she said? It couldn't have been any worse than the texts, could it? She should say something. It's a weak, "I did?"

"Oh, yeah. Look, I understand. I went into the kitchen and checked your prescription: you're supposed to take one tablet, but I saw you take two. You must have made the same mistake last night. No wonder you were—. Look, don't be embarrassed. I'm not holding you to anything, or holding anything against you. It was the meds talking, not you." Oh, he wants it to be her, so wants it to be her. He wants her to admit it that this is the way she really feels, but he presses on. "I tried to get you to eat something, but you wouldn't. And then you were crashing, falling sleep, and told me to carry you to bed." He hadn't intended to reveal that, but he'd found his rhythm and it had slipped out.

"Carry me?" Her voice has plenty of emotion now. Mostly horror, directed at herself. He'd carried her? So that's it. That's why she remembers the feel of his bare chest, being in his arms.

"Yeah. So I did, and when I put you on your bed I was trying to straighten out the sheets a bit for you and you pulled me down next to you. I landed kind of hard, and that must have been what started the phone going. The taping."

Oh, this changes everything. Everything. Absolutely everywonderfulthing. She looks him straight in the eye. In the beautiful blue eye. Both beautiful blue eyes. "Even through an extra layer, Castle? Even though you still had your shorts on underneath your jeans?"

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you, everyone. Special thanks to Raburt221 for making me laugh out loud in your guest review of the previous chapter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

He looks down at the crotch of his jeans; it's a reflexive move, completely out of his power. Commando. Busted! How the hell did she know? His fly isn't open. Does he have a torn pocket? Is there a rip in the seat of his pants? He not-so surreptitiously runs his palm over it. No tear, no rip. Finally, he looks up. "You have X-ray vision now, Beckett? I never figured you for that superpower."

She's grinning. It's the first time he's seen her look happy, truly happy, in at least a month.

"The doorknob, Castle."

"Sorry, what?"

"You left your shorts on the doorknob, in the bathroom."

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And borderline embarrassing, too, which he's damned if he's going to let her see. As opposed to his underwear, which she already has. At least it wasn't his any of his cartoon-figure ones, or the new pair that says Bottoms Up! and has bottles of Scotch with little wings flying around. He'd never have heard the end of it. End. Geez. "I do have more than one pair, you know," he says in mock indignation. "In fact, I have dozens. Scores. Hundreds, probably."

"Not here, you don't."

"What makes you think that, Detective?"

She cocks her head and looks at him appraisingly. "I don't have brain damage, despite what my recent, what do you call it, pharmaceutically-induced behavior may suggest. I got shot in the heart, not the head." She pauses. "You didn't bring a bag. I'd have seen it. You said you left in a hurry to get here, so you must not have taken the time to pack anything. Therefore, you have no other shorts with you. Deductive reasoning. I'm a detective, remember?"

"But you're supposed to be off-duty."

"Never. At least not when it comes to detecting underwear." She has a microsecond to decide if she should be really bold. What the hell, yes. This is tame after all the other things she seems to have said, or texted, to him in the last several hours. "Or lack of it."

So help him, he snorts.

She looks as if she might do the same, but then she says, "Those ones you were wearing are very nice, I will say. Couldn't help noticing the mother-of-pearl button."

She'd noticed the mother-of-pearl button? What did she do, anyway, examine them like crime-scene evidence? Too bad he wasn't wearing them at the time. He wriggles a little on his chair.

"Couldn't help noticing that you're still not wearing a shirt, too."

"And you're still not wearing a br—. Pants! You're still not wearing pants."

Her cheeks flush, and she glances at her legs. Then, very slowly, she stretches out the neck of her tee shirt, looks into the opening, and raises her head again to look unflinchingly at him. "You're right, on both counts. You could have said the word, you know. Bra. I'm wearing no bra and no pants. You a detective or somethin'?"

He holds her gaze, too. "Nope. Just a lowly writer, an ink-stained wretch. But I've been following this one detective around for three years. You'd be amazed how much I've picked up from her."

"Like what?"

"I wouldn't know where to begin, really. How about I tell you something that I learned today?"

"Okay, shoot. Not literally, please. Had enough of that to last me a while."

Oh, my God. She's so adorable. "That even though she's a cop and I'm a writer, there's a lot she can teach me about language."

"Yeah?"

"Turns out she's a wordsmith. Really. Said something today that I've never heard before, but it's in my lexicon now."

"I hope she wasn't cursing."

"Absolutely not, although she's taught me a few colorful words over time."

"So what was it?"

He knows he's pushing it, but they've come so far, and he really doesn't want to hold back any longer. And he suspects—more than—that she doesn't want to, either. "Moneyhoon."

She looks blank, but interested. "Moneywhat?"

"Hoon." Don't run, Beckett, he thinks. Please don't run. We're so close, and I know you can feel it, too.

She's a little pink around the edges, and clears her throat. "Was there a context? I mean, of course there was. Context. Right, so can you use 'moneyhoon' in a sentence?"

He raises an eyebrow and nods his head, tacitly urging her to continue. She can get there by herself, he's sure of it, and he's ready to catch her if she slips.

She brings her top lip down over the other and makes a little sucking noise. He may not survive it and he's trying so hard not to stare. Oh, she stopped. She's opening those lips, which are wet and shiny now. Like cherries. Like the visual equivalent of her shampoo.

"She put it in a sentence, huh?"

"Yup."

There's a silence that seems to stretch all the way to the pond, across it, down the dirt road, and through the woods. Finally she mumbles, "Gonna have to give me a hint, Castle."

Very gently, he moves his hand across the top of the table until the tip of his little finger grazes her wrist. If she pulls away after he tells her, he'll grab her hand to keep her here. "She said I was going to carry her across the threshold when we get married, and go on a moneyhoon. Great word, right? Very cool."

She doesn't pull away, but she does freeze in place. If he's going to keep this going, he needs to calm her down a little. "She was under the influence at the time, so I'm not holding her to anything. But I have to say, I loved it."

Except to turn her head away, she still hasn't moved. For a long time. He's going to wait her out, but he's still prepared to take her hand. He's waited three years for her, and how long can this last? She's not as much of a talker as he is. Okay, almost no one is as much of a talker as he is. But the non talking so far has been long enough that the milk on the top of his mug is turning a little nasty. Long enough that his right foot is falling asleep, even though the rest of him has probably never been this alert. He's risking keeping his eyes on her, because she can't see him properly. Oh, movement, he senses movement.

"Do you think it's true about anesthesia?"

Huh? She's lost him on this one, but at least she's saying something and doesn't appear to be mad. "Anesthesia? I'm not sure, what about it?"

"That it's truth serum."

"Nah, that's an old wive's tale. An anesthesiologist told me and I believe her. I'd better, she charged me a fortune when I had my appendix out."

"You had your appendix out?"

"Eight years ago." She looks so serious; he needs to jolly her along. "Surprised you didn't see the scar with those X-ray eyes of yours."

Her X-ray eyes just sank again. Shit, he'd taken the wrong tactic. He's still going to wait. It's less than a minute, he thinks—though his judgment does seem to have flown to the window, right through the screen—when she speaks again.

"How about truth serum in pain killers?"

Oh, that's where she's headed. "That may be a different story." He smiles, and decides to press two fingers to the inside of her wrist. Lightly as he does it, he can feel her pulse. "Hope so, anyway."

Out of nowhere she picks up her mug and holds it towards him. "Could I have some more coffee, please?"

No Olympian has sprung into action as fast as he. Grabbing his own mug, too, he dashes to the kitchen, pours two refills, and dashes back. He's sweating a little, for all kinds of reasons.

She takes a sip, and then another, followed by a gulp. The woman must have an asbestos mouth. He hopes he'll find out. First hand. First tongue. Shut up, he thinks.

"Thanks, Castle."

"My pleasure."

"Since we're talking about truth, I have to tell you something."

He wants to say, have you been lying to me? Hedging? Prevaricating? Does she even want him to respond? Maybe. Probably. "Okay."

"It took me a day. Two days, it was the second day I was in the hospital that I remembered. Was positive that I remembered, that I heard you say you love me."

Can she see the hairs standing up on his arms?

"I remembered pretty soon after, but I couldn't trust myself that it had been real. And then when you came to see me, and I saw your expression when I told you that I didn't remember much of anything that had happened at the cemetery, I was all but sure. My dad told me a few hours after you left that you and Josh had really gotten into it in the waiting room, when I was in recovery. Said he shoved you against a wall and you tried to deck him."

"Not my finest moment."

"I dunno, I wish you'd taken him out."

"You do?"

"Yeah, the guy's a jerk. I'd have loved to see you give him a bloody nose. Specially it you'd broken it. He's so vain he'd have run screaming for the nearest plastic surgeon to restore it to its original beauty. I dumped him when he came to see me on rounds that night."

"You did?"

"Yeah. It was one of my finest moments, actually."

She grins and so does he. "May I ask you something?"

"Of course. Hope I can answer."

"Why'd you do it, Kate? Break up with him."

"Oh, I think you know."

"Then may I ask you something else?"

"Good thing I had breakfast if this is turning into Twenty Questions, Castle. Looks like I'll need my strength."

"You feeling sober? Drug-free? Clear-headed?"

"As I've ever been."

"Then here comes the next question, because I would never take advantage of a drugged-up you. You know that, right?"

She looks abashed. "I know. I'm sorry about what I said before, Castle."

"That's all right." He leans across the table until he's very close to her face. "I'd really, really like to kiss you. So, may I kiss you?"

She hasn't moved away and she's still smiling, but she scrunches up her nose. "You don't want to kiss me. I'm all gross and mediciney."

"Mediciney isn't a word."

"Ish, then. Medicineish."

"Not a word, either."

"You didn't seem to mind moneyhoon."

"Damn right. And I don't care if you're mediciney or medicineish. I still want to kiss you."

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Beckett pulls back just a little, enough to worry him a bit but not send him into a panic. She blinks slowly, then very slowly again. He thinks that she looks like an owl. No, not an owl, it's just the way her lids come down—that and her wise-and-solemn expression. The only birdlike thing about her really is her weight, her bones. Who's the owl goddess? Not an owl, either, just associated with it? Athena, that's it. Who. Kate is like Athena. Except she's so gorgeous, like Venus. No, Venus is Roman and Athena is Greek, he can't mix these cultures up, it's uncivilized. Who is the Roman version of Athena, anyway? It's in his brain somewhere, walking around in the Mount Olympus section. No, no, no, that's where the Greek goddesses hang out. Hung out. Where are, were, the Roman ones? Shit. Oh, he's got it! Minerva is the Roman Athena! So Kate is Minerva and Venus, all in one, both Roman. Even though she's a hundred percent American. American Beauty. They should watch that movie together sometime, _American Beauty_. Do they have Netflix here?

Maybe he is panicking, after all. She's not smiling anymore. She's not frowning, but she's definitely not smiling. She just blinked again.

"Castle?"

"Yes? What? Do you need something? You look like you might need something. Tell me what you need."

"A pen."

"A pen? Sure. I can find one. I will."

"Better make it a pencil instead."

He pushes his hand through his hair, and notes in his reflection in the window behind Kate that it gives him the appearance of a cardinal, sort of. The bird, not the Prince of the Church. So he and Kate are both members of the avian world. Yes, he's panicking. "Right, pencil."

"Don't want to mark the table permanently. A pencil is better."

"Definitely." What the hell is she talking about? Does this mean the matter of the kiss is off the table? He stands up and looks around the room.

"It's in the kitchen, by the phone. In the jar."

Of course he knocks over the jar. At least he doesn't break it, though it's a Smuckers jelly jar so he could have replaced it if he'd had to. Unless it's a precious keepsake. Had it belonged to her Mom? Had she always made sandwiches with Smuckers jelly? Thank God, it's intact. No chips or anything. He's shoving everything back in and the points should all be down or Kate could hurt herself on one when she's here alone. Could be stabbed through the palm with a pencil point. No, she can't be here alone. Totally out of the question. And suppose it had been this that she dropped on the floor, not the coffee beans? She might have cut her foot and bled to death before he got here.

Put

the

pencils

in

the

jar

one

by

one

with

the

eraser

end

up.

Finally. Done. He chooses a bright yellow Number 2 Ticonderoga pencil, one of his favorites, with the least-used eraser in the bunch since he doesn't know how much she might need to erase. Clutching it tightly in his hand, he pads carefully back to the table, and puts it down next to her. "It this okay?"

"Perfect. Thank you. I'd draw on the floor, but I can't bend over that far. Yet. It's only temporary, but I have to draw now, you know? Can't wait for later."

"Mmhmm." What's he agreeing to? All he knows is that she's holding the pencil between her thumb and two fingers, just as he's seen her do countless times. Innumerable. Incalculable. She has beautiful hands. Slender, tapering fingers. And then she presses down, and does indeed draw a line from one side of the table to the other. It's amazingly straight, as if she'd used a ruler. There's barely a wiggle or a wobble in it. He might have known.

She puts the pencil down. "See that?"

"Yes."

"It's a line."

"Right. Got it."

He's standing three or four steps away from her, with his arms out to the sides, and she has to tilt her head back a little so that she can look him in the eye. "Here's the thing. If you kiss me, you cross the line. I cross it, because I'll kiss you back. And if we cross that line, there's no going back. Not for me."

His knees liquefy. He might collapse onto the floor in a heap before he can cross the line. "Me, either," he says. "I'm coming over, okay?"

She puts her hand up, palm out. "Castle?"

Oh, God, now what? He can't wait, just—. He just can't. "Yes?"

"I'm so weak still, you know? I hate it, but I won't be that way forever. But if you're going to kiss me now, um, I can't promise that it will be sexciting."

He starts to laugh. "I don't care. Don't care. Not at all. See my feet?"

She looks down. "Yup."

"My feet are going to take me over to you, I hope they do anyway, cause I have to admit I'm feeling a little unsteady here. And then I'll kiss you."

And she smiles a smile that he's never seen before, and he knows it's for him, and he's pretty sure that he's turned entirely to liquid. Until he takes her face between his hands, and then he's not liquid at all.

His lips are so soft. They're even softer than they were in January, when they were outdoors and had their fake kiss. The fake kiss that wasn't fake at all, even if she'd refused to admit it. This is real. This is the real deal, and he's so gentle, so gentle, but there's a little more pressure and she's letting him in and here's his tongue, it's tongue meeting tongue and oh, God.

Oh, God, her mouth. It's like an invitation, come in, come in, stay. I want you to stay. Stay, I'm staying. He can feel her nipples hardening under her thin tee shirt, brushing against him, but he mustn't touch her breasts, keeps his hands from straying there, she is still wounded. He gathers up her hair in his fists, takes out the elastic so the waves tumble over his fingers, engulf them with a whole other kind of sensuality. Touch, touch is so underrated.

He buries his face in her hair and she moves her head beneath his hands, trying to press her lips against his neck. She doesn't want to stop but she has to catch her breath, and she feels him kiss the hollow between her collarbones, his tongue slick against her skin. Ow. Ow. "Careful, Castle, Rick. Careful."

With a snap, he pulls his head back. He's terrified, and his breathing is ragged. "I hurt you. Jesus, I hurt you, Kate. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. What can I do? I'm sorry. I'm—"

"No, no you didn't. You didn't hurt me. It's fine, will be. I'm, it's just tender. I'm sorry." She puts her hand on his cheek, flips it over and runs her knuckles over his jawline. "Your skin is so soft. You shaved? How did you shave?"

Castle sinks to his knees next to her. "Found a disposable razor. Back of the medicine cabinet, in the bathroom. You know, the place where you realized my state of almost undress." That was a mistake. He shouldn't have said that, not while he's trying to ignore his nascent, definitely unwanted-at-the-moment erection.

"Don't mention undress, Castle. This is hard enough as it is."

"Oh, you have no idea." Shouldn't have said that, either.

"Turning my words back on me, huh?"

"You remember that?" He's stunned. He'd have bet a hundred to one that she didn't.

"Of course I do."

"Why, Katherine Beckett, you had a thing for me even then. Our very first case. Admit it!"

"Oh, please."

His eyes are sparkling, and so are hers. "You're nothing but a softy. You're Detective Softy."

She puts a finger on his lips. "Shhh. Don't tell. You'll ruin my kick-ass reputation. I've worked on it for years, you know."

Before she can stop him, he pulls her finger into his mouth, gives her a wicked look as he sucks noisily on it, and then releases it. "Couldn't help myself," he says, wiping his chin.

"Castle?"

"Beckett?"

"I think you'd better get back over that line. You know, temporarily. Like for the next three weeks or so."

He stands up, looking remarkably cheerful under the circumstances. "I need some paper. You have paper?"

"Why?"

"To make a chart."

"Of what?"

"Days."

"Days?"

"Yeah, how many days until I get to cross the line again. Three weeks, you said. So twenty-one days. I can stand it if you can."

She looks suspiciously like a plotter, like she has something up that skimpy little sleeve of hers. "You know how you could spend a little time right now?"

"Making the chart?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of a shower. You could take a cold shower." Her eyes find a new target: his bulging pants. "Looks like you could use one." She has the grace to cover her face when she laughs.

"You know, that's something of a line crosser, what you just said. But I'll have you know that I have no need for a cold shower. I'm the master of self control. I'll just think of punching out Josh Davidson. Or for that matter that little Feeb twerp, Sorenson, eating those doughnuts. The memory of that is enough to put me off doughnuts forever, which is tough if you work in a police station, right?" He sits down in his chair again and looks smugly at her. "You hungry?"

"Not really."

"Not even for balls? Oh, I forgot, there are none available. Just chunks. Of melon." He peers into the bowl, circles his index finger several times over the fruit, and finally picks out a piece which he pops into his mouth. He slurps, and licks his lips.

"You're not going to drive me crazy with that lascivious bit of behavior, you know. I'm a self-control expert myself."

No kidding, he's smart enough not to say. "That wasn't lascivious."

"It was."

"Wasn't. Lascivious usually implies offensive sexual desire. Nothing offensive about what I did. I dare you to deny it."

She chuckles. "Is this what it's going to be like for three weeks? Because I don't think I could stand _that_. I'd make you go home."

"Can't go home. I'd get lost in the woods and have to survive on nuts and berries." He takes another bit of melon and chews on it. "I don't know the way home."

And just like that, a light goes on in her recently de-fogged mind. She sits up as straight as her wounds allow, her eyes like heat-seeking missiles locked in on him. "Don't know the way? What do you mean? How did you get here?"

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you all. I think one more chapter will do it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Those who read a lot of my stories know that I'm notoriously bad at calculating how quickly I'm going to wrap one up. So: this isn't the final chapter, after all.

The rational part of his mind, which had all but shut down the moment he'd seen her this morning, had been trying to warn him that she'd get around to asking that. Yet she still catches him completely off guard, with his mental pants down.

When he hears her question—really three questions, an unholy trinity—he coughs so hard that the melon flies out of his mouth. He didn't know that a piece of soft fruit, half the size of a Ping-Pong ball, could become a projectile capable of traveling so far. It might have gone on for 50 miles, might have made it to the Atlantic Ocean, had it not hit the wall. Literally hit the wall, not that marathon runner thing of hitting the wall. Hit the wall eight feet away from him, landing with a splat next to a 2011 songbird calendar that's hanging over a wooden bench. He can see from where he's sitting that Ms. June is identified as a warbler of some kind. Or is it Mr. June? He's not clear on gender differences in birds excepts cardinals, the feathered friend to which he had compared himself only moments ago. Male cardinals are red, females are brown and have little splatters of red in their feathers. Speaking of splat. But the bird on the calendar this month is a warbler. Is it called that because it warbles? Don't all birds warble? A lot of them do, like canaries, right? He should look it up.

"Castle!"

"Uh." Does he look like the cat that ate the canary? Or warbler? He must. But how can he tell her that he knew the way here? That he knew where she was? "Oh, uh." He coughs again, no melon expulsion this time, just nerves. His nerves are flying out of his big fat mouth and going splat on the wall. "Well, I figured you must be at your father's cabin. Just logical, you know, since you weren't at your apartment. Because I checked that, that you weren't there. And I figured oh, Beckett will want the peace and quiet. So she'll go to the country. And that's how I knew to come here."

One look at her face and he knows she's not buying any of it. Even he knew what he's said is cripplingly lame. Can she see the sweat beading above his lip? He needs to shore up his story. A little soft soap couldn't hurt.

"It was deductive reasoning, Detective. Exactly what you used to determine that I didn't bring any extra clothes with me. Simple as that. After all, I learned from the best, NYPD badge number 41319." His knees would give out if he weren't sitting down. He's never been this grateful to be in a chair.

With one steely look, Kate pinions him, then points towards the screen door. "See that bird?"

Birds! Is she reading his mind? Now that the meds are out of her system she's not missing a thing. It's terrifying and weirdly erotic. "Which one?"

"The robin, Castle. I know you're a city slicker, but even you can ID a robin. There are thousands of them in Central Park. This one is perched on the porch railing."

"Robin. I see him. Her. It."

That gets him a shake of the head. "Him. Him. Red breast means it's a male."

"Right, him."

"You're familiar with the expression 'birdbrain'?"

She has one eyebrow up, which is always a bad sign. It's the facial equivalent of six-inch-high, red neon letters blinking DANGER! DANGER! "Yes, I'm acquainted with that one."

"Well, your average birdbrain, someone with the mental capacity of that sweet little robin out there, wouldn't fall for this line of yours. More to the point, you've conveniently omitted describing how it is that you knew the way here. This isn't exactly the crossroads of the world. I've never even told you what town this cabin is near. So, how did you know, Ricky?"

Oh, the sound of "Ricky" is really not good.

"You've got some 'splainin' to do. Correction, a lot of 'splainin' to do."

Funny what how much punch a 55-year-old line from _I Love Lucy_ still has. It usually makes him laugh, but not now. Today it jolts some sense into him. He's not going down for this. Not alone. If she's going to be pissed off, fine, but she can be pissed off at both of them. But what's really important is that it's time she knows exactly who has her back. "Your dad, Kate. I went to see your dad and told him that you had texted me and that I was going to come keep you company. He thought that was a good idea and gave me the directions. All written out. See?"

He shoves his hand in one of his rear pockets, pulls out a piece of paper, unfolds it and pushes it across the tabletop.

She barely glances at the page that's filled with familiar handwriting—handwriting that suddenly brings to mind birthday cards and notes of encouragement and letters when she was at camp. Things that her father had written to her since the time she could read. "My dad did this?" She looks ashen as she shakily pushes the paper back to Castle. She doesn't want it. "You told him about my texts? I have never been this embarrassed in my life. Ever. I can't believe you'd do that."

This time he does wrap his hand around her wrist, and holds on, gently but firmly. There's no way he's letting her leave until he's said his piece, made her understand. "I didn't show him your texts, Kate. You know I wouldn't. I told him only that you'd spilled the coffee beans and couldn't pick them up and wondered if I could make you coffee and keep you company. So you'd have someone to talk to. That's all. Get it? That's _all_."

"I told him I was fine, Castle. I can take care of myself. Everyone's acting as though I can't. You're all interfering. I hate it. I can be alone." She's grinding her teeth so hard he half expects powdered enamel to fall from her mouth.

"Clearly you're not, Kate. You're not fine. It's not a moral failing, you know. No one thinks you're weak. You're healing, for God's sake. You were shot. You were in surgery for hours. You flatlined." Saying _flatlined_ aloud is a blow to his already battered heart, and he has to stop for a moment, still hanging on to her wrist. He looks down at the line that she'd drawn a few minutes ago, sighs, and looks back up at her face. "You're not well enough to be alone. If you were, you could have picked up the coffee beans, and you'd never have overmedicated—not once, but twice—in less than twelve hours. So no, you can't be alone. Your dad and I are not conspiring against you, all right? We want to help you, and right now I'm in the better position to do that. He's in the middle of a case and I'm in the middle of—of nothing important."

She scrapes her chair back, as if she's trying to get away from him, so he closes his hand around hers a little more tightly.

"That's not true, what I just said. What I'm in the middle of now is incredibly important, which is to make sure that you eat properly and get the right dosages of meds and do your exercises. If you want to slap me one right now, fine, give it your best shot. But I'm not leaving. I'll keep quiet, and sit outside while you're in, or in while you're out, but I'm staying. I'll go back to the city when your father comes here for the weekend, but I'll be passing him on the driveway Sunday night when he's going out and I'm coming in."

Castle is exhausted. Every bit of him, physically, psychically. A few moments ago he'd been exhilarated; now he's depleted. He loves amusement parks, considers himself an aficionado, but he has never been on a roller coaster that rivals the one that he has been on since he walked through the door here earlier today. In the face of her whatever it is—anger? intransigence?—he decides to go for broke; it's all he can think to do. He reminds himself of the trauma she has been through and is still enduring.

"You know I love you, Kate. All I ask is that for the next few weeks, or as long as it takes for you truly to be on your feet, that you allow me to look after you. If you really don't want me here, if you really feel betrayed, fine. In that case I'll hire nurses to stay with you. And before you say anything about how expensive that would be, how uncomfortable it would make you to have me pay for it, forget it. It would be my gift to your father. From one father to another. If Alexis were in your situation I'd want the best possible care for her. So if you have objections, the court isn't going to hear them."

When he gets to his feet he wonders if he has the strength to make it across the room. This must be what she feels like, minus the physical agony. "I'm going to clear the table now, do the dishes, and take a nap on the porch or the sofa, depending on where you want to be. While I'm sleeping, you can decide if you want to have nurses here, or me."

She's still quiet while he carries their breakfast things to the sink. He's just turning on the hot water when he hears her. "There's liquid detergent in the cabinet."

He holds up a bottle. "Already got it. It was next to the sink."

"In the bathroom."

He's at a loss again. It must be sleep depravation. He manages a weak smile. "No problem, there's plenty here."

"Castle?"

"Yes."

"I meant for your shorts. Thought you might want to wash them so you don't have to go commando again tomorrow. It would be really hard for me to concentrate on physical therapy day after day, knowing that you're wandering around here underwearless."

He turns the water off. Had he heard her right? He takes a couple of steps in the direction of the table. She's looking right at him, and so many emotions play across her face in a few seconds that he feels as though he's watching some kind of time-lapse photography. She appears happy and contrite, sure and unsure, frightened and confident, all underlaid with a certain amount of physical pain.

"Kate?"

And now she looks bashful. "Yeah?"

"I can stay? You want me to stay?"

"Yes. Even if you drive me crazy sometimes, you'll be a damn sight better than some Nurse Ratched."

"Okay."

"Just one condition."

He's not happy about this, but he'll live with any compromise if he can be here with her. "Done."

"You have to promise never to ask, 'How are we feeling today?'."

He puts his hand over his heart. "I promise. I swear."

"And one more thing."

"I thought you said just one condition? And now you're adding something? Are you taking advantage of me?"

"Not strong enough for that yet, but just wait. No, this is—" She stops and puts her head in her hands.

He doesn't know what to do, and his feet won't budge. He'd told her he'd keep quiet, so he will, anxious as it makes him.

"Please promise that you'll forgive me for what I said. I know you wouldn't show my father those texts. I'm just still so mortified about them. The other thing is, I've been independent all my life, and I hate relying on someone else. Always have. When my mother tried to show me how to tie my shoes I had a tantrum. Wanted to do it all by myself. I've come to realize that I like to rely on you, that I want to lean on you a little, but that scares the hell out of me. I wish that I hadn't discovered this while I'm such a physical wreck, because I could deal with it better. It's kind of a new me inside an old me. Or anyway, a me that feels a hundred years old at the moment."

He's gobsmacked. He's delirious. He's—. He runs to the table and stumbles to a halt in front of her. "I know you said I had to stay on the other side of the line for three weeks. And as soon as I do this one thing, this one little thing, I will." He leans forward and kisses her as long and as passionately as he can without using his hands for anything but holding her by the shoulders. And then he withdraws, leaving her breathless. "I said it last winter, when I kissed you in that alleyway, and I'll say it again. Amazing."

When he turns and starts to go back to the kitchen, she shouts, "Wait! What are you doing?"

He pivots and smiles innocently. "Who, me? I'm going to make that chart. Gotta fill in things for twenty-one days, so I don't cross the line you've been talking about."

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Castle gets a piece of paper and begins to scribble down ideas for his chart while Kate does some exercises, insisting that this particular workout is one that she can do on her own. Even from the porch he can hear the occasional "son of a bitch" or "how many more?" coming from her room, and twice he gets up from his rocking chair to make sure that she's all right, but thinks better of it. When "I cannot fucking believe how much this hurts" reaches him, he has to do something. With uncustomary resolve, he continues to leave her alone, but does go inside to make a pitcher of fresh lemonade. By the time she emerges, pale beneath her flushed skin, it's ready. She's dressed in a faded blue tee shirt now, Rosie the Riveter apparently consigned to the hamper, but she still hasn't put any pants on. Thank you, God.

"Thought you could use this," he says, raising a glass that he has topped with mint from a pot by the back door. "Want to sit out here for a little bit?"

"Sounds nice. Thanks," she says, easing into the other rocker. They sit in the shade, chatting off and on about relatively safe topics—books, movies—both sharply aware of their new, still-fragile peace. He fills the interstices with unvoiced thoughts of them doing this for the rest of their lives, here, in the Hamptons, watching their kids run around on the grass with sparklers. He hopes she's not reading his mind, the way she apparently had been earlier when he was in bird mode. When he sees her eyes close, he tiptoes to his car to get his computer bag.

What a nitwit, he says to himself. You remembered this but not any clothes? Still, he's ecstatic that he has it because his brain is buzzing about his chart and he's itching to get to work. He sits down at the table, opens his laptop, and creates a new file. There's no wifi here, but he doesn't need it, not yet: he starts typing, stopping and starting and stopping, deleting, chuckling, frowning, fist-pumping. "Got it!" he whispers jubilantly. "Twenty-one!" After peeking out the window to see if Kate is still snoozing—she is—he checks the time and is stunned to see that he's been at this for an hour. He hasn't nailed down every detail, but he has the bulk of what he wants, and he smiles as he stretches. He hasn't been this excited about making something since he and Alexis did the baking-soda volcano when she was in elementary school. Huh, volcano. That was the project that had led to his mastering chocolate lava cake. His stomach grumbles at the memory: maybe he should make one for Kate, put a few ounces on her.

His dessert reverie is interrupted by the sound of the screen door closing. "Hey. Was I out long?"

"A while," he says vaguely, pulling down the lid of his laptop. "You hungry?"

"A little."

"We missed lunch. Those omelets were really late breakfast. Are you in the mood for chocolate lava cake?"

"Whoa, that's specific. What brought that on? Is there one lying around here somewhere?"

He'd just as soon not reveal the chain of thought that ended with the cake, so he answers only her second question. "There could be. I can make one in half an hour if you have the ingredients."

"Like what, besides chocolate? I doubt it. My baking expertise is pretty much limited to those slice-and-bake refrigerator cookies, which I usually eat after the slice part. You know, right from the tube. No oven required."

Castle is horrified. "You're kidding. You do that?"

"Says the man who squirts fake whipped cream from an aerosol can straight into his mouth."

He waves away her remark. "How far away is the nearest town? I know there is one, but it was dark when I was driving up, so I couldn't really tell much. And by town I mean one with an actual supermarket and other amenities."

"It's about ten miles. Williams. And yes, it has an actual supermarket. Also running water and electricity."

"So, at least a two-horsepower town, then?"

That makes her laugh. "Yes. There's a post office, a liquor store, a little all-kinds-of-unfashionable-clothing store, pharmacy."

"How about a computer store?"

Sweeping her arm in the direction of his Mac, she says, "Seems you already have a computer, Castle. Doubt they have an upgrade on that one, since it's probably about five days old. Even if there were a computer store, which there isn't."

"I just need to print something out. Oh, and go online for a few minutes."

"The library, you can do that in the library." When she notes how surprised he is she adds, "The Library Services and Technology Act. Thanks to it, little libraries in little towns like this all across the US of A are wired. Sea to shining sea. Mountains to the prairies."

"That's sort of a mixed metaphor, Beckett. You're quoting two different songs. Both patriotic, but not the same." Oh, not smart. She's glaring. "Sorry, I didn't mean. I wasn't—are you making fun of me?"

She shakes her head. "You really need to get out more, Castle." And then a laugh bubbles out of her. "You are so easy."

"Keep that up," he says with a sniff, "and you'll get no chocolate lava cake. Which, you should know, is one of my specialities."

"Sending me to bed without my supper, then?"

He gives her such a look. "Sending you to bed without me, anyway."

"Line, Rick. Line."

Oh, she might be reading his mind again. Line. It's why he needs to get to a place with wifi. "If I make you a little snack right now, will it hold you until dinner? I want to go into town, hit that vaunted library of yours for a couple of minutes."

"I can make myself a snack."

"Which will be half an olive and one potato chip. No way. One of my jobs over the next three weeks is to make sure that you're properly nourished."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she grumbles.

"You've moved on to the Beatles, I see. Good song," he says over his shoulder, as he opens the fridge and takes out the ingredients for a small blueberry smoothie. Two minutes later he gives it to her. "Now drink this, please, and give me the instructions for getting to Williams."

"Turn right at the end of the driveway, go half a mile, turn left on to Farm Road Seventy-Eight—""

"You're kidding. There's a street called Farm Road Seventy-Eight?"

"Yes, and you might be banished there for all eternity if you don't wipe that smirk off your face. Just listen to the instructions."

Castle nods and attempts, not entirely successfully, a look of remorse.

"Follow it—you paying attention?" He nods again. "Follow the road with the name you seem to find so hilarious until it comes to a fork. Take the left one, which is Croft Street, straight into town. Now go and let me drink my smoothie."

He clears his throat and holds up one finger.

"What?"

He waves his finger.

"One?"

He nods enthusiastically.

Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of dragging this out, she stops to try to share his brain, a trick she's gotten fairly good at. "One hour," she says. "You'll be back in one hour." She can almost feel his grin. Bingo!

"Right! Back in an hour, Beckett." On the way out, he remembers to grab his wrinkled, coffee-scented tee shirt and pull it on.

It takes eighteen minutes to get to Williams, and another minute to find the library. He's smitten the instant he sees the wood-shingled, one-story building, its windows framed by green shutters. The kind that actually shut. WILLIAMS LIBRARY. ESTD. 1887 it says over the sturdy front door, which is propped open to let in the late-afternoon breeze. The interior is split into two rooms, both crammed with bookshelves that run almost to the ceiling.

"Hello," he says to the librarian—he assumes she's the librarian—a no-nonsense type in a flowered blouse and blue skirt. She's roughly his mother's age, but all resemblance ends there.

"Hello, Mister Castle. It is Mister Castle, isn't it?"

"Wow. Yes, it is. I am. I'm afraid you have the advantage, Ms.—?"

"Cooper. Susanna Cooper. May I help you?"

He's definitely out of his depth here in rural America. "I was hoping to use your computer? I mean printer? I brought my own. Computer that is, not printer. It's just a short document and I'm sure there's a fee which of course I am happy to pay. Delighted. Whatever it is. Cash? I should pay cash, right?"

"Cash is fine, Mister Castle."

"Rick, I'm Rick. Please."

"Rick. Thank you. And it's fifteen cents a page." She points to the corner just behind and to the left of him. "The computer station is right over there. You'll find everything you need, I trust. If not, just holler."

"Right. Will do. Thank you. Um, I have to look up one or two few things first, to add to my document, so I'll just avail myself of your wifi, too, if that's all right. I'll use my own laptop. Won't monopolize your computer."

She fixes him with a look that would rival any of Beckett's. Maybe there's something in the water up here. "I wouldn't worry about that. There's no horde of Visigoths waiting to use it."

"Good," he says weakly. "Good. I'll get started then. Be out of your hair in no time."

"My hair can take it, Mister Castle. Rick." And with that she returns to her book.

A quarter of an hour later he has finished his research, completed his chart, and printed out three copies. He walks to the librarian's desk and holds up his papers. "I made some extras. Can't be too careful. So, six pages, ninety cents?"

"Correct."

He opens his wallet and hands her a twenty-dollar bill.

"Afraid I don't have enough change for that. Have you nothing smaller?"

"No, I'm so sorry. I came up here in a hurry, and. Sorry. Why don't you just keep the change? A small contribution to this wonderful library."

"Really? That's very kind. We can use all the help we can get." She opens the top drawer of the desk and slides the twenty into it. "I'll put this in the bank at the end of the week."

"Mind if I look around, Ms. Cooper?"

"Not at all. Nineteen dollars and ten cents buys you as long a look as you'd like."

He chuckles. He likes her. Sometime later he's deep into a collection of Eudora Welty short stories when Susanna Cooper taps him on the shoulder.

"Sorry to disturb you, especially since you're reading one of my favorite books, but I'm afraid it's closing time. Would you like to check that out? Borrow it?"

"Oh, no, I don't have a card."

"I'm sure you're trustworthy. I can just put it on Jim Beckett's card. If you don't return it, I'll send him after you."

"Jim?"

"You are staying at the Becketts' place, aren't you?"

"I've heard that news travels fast in small towns, but how did you know? I got here only this morning."

She smiles. "I didn't learn it from the jungle drums. Just assumed, which is a bad habit of mine."

"May I ask how? How you, er,"

"Knew? First, I recognized you from your books. Second, I know that you work with Katie. Third, I'm aware that she's recuperating here. It's not hard to connect the dots when there are only three of them. Now, would you like to take that book with you? If so, be sure to read 'Why I Live at the P.O.' It's in that collection and for my money it's the best American short story of the twentieth century."

"I wouldn't disagree."

"I'm preaching to the choir, then."

"I guess you are. Um, I hope, well—this is shameless of me, but you recognized me from my books?"

"You're no Eudora Welty, but I've read and thoroughly enjoyed your books. We have all the Derrick Storm ones here. Very popular."

He feels as if he's just won the Nobel Prize, even if Susanna Cooper doesn't put him on the top shelf with Eudora Welty. He wouldn't, either. "I'm flattered, thank you. But no Nikki Heat? You don't have _Heat Wave_?"

"We do not. It's our Katie. Page one oh five was kind of the talk of the town, as you might imagine. I thought that she'd be embarrassed if we had a circulating copy here. Her father, too."

He's the one who's embarrassed now, feels as if he's let down the Beckett family as well as the librarian whom he'd just met. He touches her elbow. "You know it's not her, right? Kate isn't Nikki. It's just my imagination. She's been so helpful to me, but it's her work that interests me, the police work. Detective work." Geez, he's lying to a librarian. It's as bad as lying to a priest. But so help him, what he's even more interested in is undercover work with Kate. Maybe in 22 days.

"I understand," he says, and means it. "I will borrow the Welty book, and I pledge to return it. I'm going to be here for a while, keeping Kate company."

"Mmhmm," Susanna Cooper says.

"I've another favor to ask. Could you tell me where the clothing store is? I need to pick up a couple of things since I underpacked." He's telling another lie. He could go straight to hell. "Truthfully"—atta boy, he tells himself—I didn't pack anything at all."

She smiles indulgently. "Right across the street, four doors down. It's Harry Meets Sally."

"Really? That's the name of it?"

"What can I tell you? The owners love the movie. It came out a couple of months before they opened the store. At least they didn't call it I'll Have What She's Having."

Castle quickly reassesses Susanna Cooper. She's more like his mother than he'd thought. He looks at her, she looks at him, and they both crack up.

"Good night, Rick."

"Good night, Susanna. And thank you."

He makes his way to Harry Meets Sally, which is Kate had described as unfashionable. Not entirely. He finds a package of three pairs of Jockey shorts, another package of cotton socks, and three plain Champion tee shirts, one each of blue, green, and dark red. They're not unfashionable, they're classics. He pays the gangly kid at the front desk in cash. No need to be spreading his name around town. No need for his credit card company to know he just bought a week's worth of clothes for $51.78, either.

There's an ice cream cart in front of the pharmacy, and he treats himself to a chocolate mint cone. He's on his third lick when he remembers that he hasn't gone to the grocery store, which he spots at the end of the block. He runs as fast as he can and grabs the ingredients for the cake—two kinds of chocolate, powdered sugar, vanilla extract. He know there are eggs and butter at the cabin, but he's not sure about flour, so he tosses a four-pound bag in his basket. The cashier—how old is she, twelve?—is ringing up his items when his phone rings.

"Beckett? Are you okay?"

"That's my question for you, Castle. Where the hell are you?"

"In Williams. Buying stuff for the cake."

"You said you'd be back in an hour. I've been terrified."

"It's only been." He looks at his watch. "Shit. Three hours? I'm sorry, I'll be right there."

"What happened?"

"I fell in love with the librarian."

"Susanna Cooper?"

"The very one."

"I thought you were in love with me."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you all for reading. I hope you've noticed that I haven't been stupid enough to announce (again) when this story will end.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She thought right: he is in love with her. Dizzyingly in love. Overwhelmingly, unexpectedly, spectacularly, magically, never-before-ly, no-holds-barred-ly in love. He's 40 years old. The kind of love that's suffusing his entire system is not only new, but something that he'd long ago given up on ever experiencing.

"I am," he tells Kate, omitting "in love with you" since he's in a public place. "Can you hear the cash register? Cha-ching! I just paid. I'm coming home right now." He ends the call before he says or does anything that might alarm the underage cashier. Or Kate, for that matter. Once he's in the car, he stows the bags of groceries and clothes on the floor in the back and puts the charts—which are now secure in a manila envelope that he'd had in the trunk—on the seat next to him. He can't believe that he'd lost track of time, and he's awash in guilt that she had been worried about him. An eighteen-minute drive back is too damn long. He knows the way now, and there's no one on these back roads, so what the hell. He floors it.

Flooring it in a Ferrari with a V12 engine isn't a flawless idea, especially on an unpaved road. For one thing, the clouds of dust that the wheels leave behind are probably visible in Canada; for another, Castle's doing double the speed limit in thirty seconds. Shortly after that, he hears a pursuer, even though he can't see him. The local cop has hit the siren with such force that it's probably audible in Canada. The neighbors to the north must be mystified.

Castle excoriates himself as he pulls over, hears the trooper shut his car door, and watches him emerge through the dust plume. First, the top of his Smokey-the-Bear hat, then the brim, followed by a jaw that could carve granite, and a pair of epauletted shoulders that are roughly as wide as the car's front axle. By the time the guy's belt buckle looms into view, Castle has his license and registration in his hand and is wheezing slightly from the dust that's swirling through the window that he just rolled down.

The trooper, who looks about 60, probably spent decades perfecting the glare that he's deploying."Pretty quick with your documents there, Mister—" he scrutinizes the license. "Cattle. Mister Cattle."

"Castle. It's Castle." Shut up, you idiot. Don't make this any worse.

"Uh huh." He bends over slightly to give the miscreant a better look at his icy eyes. "Not as quick as you were driving, though. You in some kind of hurry?"

Castle glances at the man's name tag. "Normally I never, ever speed, Sergeant Nelson. It's just, I realized I was really late and my gir—" his what? He was going to call Kate his girlfriend in front of a cop? A cop she undoubtedly knows? Shut up you idiot. Again. "My partner is ticked off because I should have been back two hours ago. You know how that goes, right?"

If the sergeant knows, he's not letting on. "Your partner? You got some kind of love nest up here? Getting away from the wicked city?"

Love nest? This guy must be 100, even if he looks 60 and has the physique of someone half that. Probably never ate a doughnut in his life. Too busy bench pressing. "No! No, absolutely not! Not that kind of partner. Sergeant. She's a detective and I work with her with the NYPD. We're partners. I'm just visiting. Here. Williams. Great, great town you have. Especially the library. Love your library."

Nelson's glare is now accompanied by a tiny tic. "So. You visiting Katie Beckett?"

"That's right." Castle puts on his Sunday-best smile.

"Her dad there?"

"No, Jim went back to work yesterday so I came up."

"He know you're here? Lets you stay there with her alone?"

Is this the way he talks to Alexis's boyfriends? No wonder she gets so mad at him. The difference being that he and Kate are over 21. Consenting adults. Not that she's consented to anything yet. What's with this cop, anyway? Don't say anything else, you idiot. Just answer the question.

"Yes, he does. Gave me his blessing."

Castle is regretting that he hadn't brought _The Brothers Karamazov_ with him. He could have read three more chapters in the time it takes Sergeant Just Say No to Doughnuts to stroll to his car, check the license and registration, and presumably run a background check to make sure that Richard Castle of Sin City, NY, is not a serial killer. He's afraid to call Beckett, for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that Nelson would inevitably return while he was talking to her. She must be apoplectic by now. Wait, he'll text her. That's quick. He stabs a message into his phone.

"Sorry, held up. Be there asap."

Right on cue, Nelson reappears. Agonizingly slowly, he returns the license and registration, and then produces a ticket. "You were going sixty-eight miles an hour."

"Gosh, I'm sorry. I had no idea."

"This is a thirty-five MPH zone, Mister Castle. That's going to cost you one hundred and twenty five dollars. And a point on your license. Payable by Friday or you'll get a court summons."

"Right, again, I'm very sorry. I'll come into town tomorrow and pay it. I will. I'll drive ten miles an hour."

"We frown on dawdlers here, Mister Castle."

"Good to know. Evening, Sergeant."

"Yup." He touches two fingers to the felt brim of his hat, walks purposefully to his car, and waits to watch Castle start his engine and head back down Farm Road Seventy-Eight.

It takes forever to reach the cabin, since he's measuring his trip in seconds rather than minutes. He parks, collects his bags and envelope, and notices that Kate has turned on some of the lights. As he approaches the kitchen door, he's painfully aware of the $125 speeding ticket that's burning in his pocket. His pants might go up in flames. "Kate?" No answer. "Kate?"

Silence. "Beckett?" He drops the groceries and runs to her room. She's not there. Not in the bathroom or her father's room or the porch. Where is she? What if she's fallen somewhere?

The pond. She's gone to the goddamn pond and it's all his fault. If she's swimming…

"Beckett! Kate!"

He finds her standing near the water's edge and she turns halfway towards him. Even in the twilight he can see her eyes glowing. "They're coming back, Castle."

"Who? Who's coming back?" He's so relieved that she's all right that he doesn't care if the entire Canadian Army is marching here to confiscate his car.

"The fireflies. They were almost gone. Because of insecticides. But there have been a few more the last two summers. And then a few minutes ago I saw a whole flock, or whatever you call a group of fireflies."

He makes a mental note to check. A gaggle of geese. A host of sparrows. A party of blue jays. And his favorites: a murmuration of starlings, a descent of woodpeckers, a flamboyance of flamingoes. But fireflies? No idea. "You're right. There were tons when I was a kid, but Alexis? Hardly any."

"Look! See them? Over there?"

He's almost aching with the need to hold her hand, but he won't. Not yet. "I do." He waits a few beats. "I'm sorry I'm so late."

"Let's go in."

That's her reaction? Let's go in? "Okay. You must be starving."

"Not really," she says, walking across the grass to the glowing cabin. "It was a good smoothie."

"That was hours ago."

"You're telling me."

He's trying to be careful, mindful not to crowd her as they go through the door. "I'm going to make pasta. There's a roast chicken in the fridge and I'll put some of that in, and some veggies. It won't take long."

"An hour? Will it take an hour, Castle?"

The firefly honeymoon period is apparently over, and she looks cranky. "No. Twenty minutes, tops. Really. I got caught up looking at a book in the library. Started reading. Oh, I have it with me! I'll show you!"

Kate is clearly stunned. "Did you steal it?"

"What! No! I borrowed it."

"Susanna Cooper let you borrow it?"

"It was her idea."

"You don't have a library card. She is the Dragon of Williams. No way she'd let you take that out."

"She put it on your father's card."

Kate sits down so hard on a kitchen stool that she winces. "You thought you had some 'splainin' to do before? I can't wait to hear this."

So he tells her, omitting nothing except the Nikki Heat bit. By the end she's laughing almost as hard as he and Susanna Cooper had over the "I'll have what she's having" moment.

"You must have been in there a hell of a long time, Castle. I phoned you and you never called back."

She did? Had? He digs his phone out. Damn. Missed call, there it was. "I muted it in the library. I take the Quiet, Please sign very seriously. Forgot to turn it back on until I left Harry Meets Sally and was on the way to the market. I'm sorry."

"What did you do, take the grand tour? I was frantic, you know. I really did think something awful had happened."

Because something awful, beyond awful, had happened to her. She has been hiding that particular anxiety from him and he's racked with guilt. Maybe he should have bought a hair shirt along with those three colorful tees. He's going to have to fess up about the speeding ticket, but that can wait. It dawns on him that the after effects of the shooting and of the pain meds lead to a lot of mood swings, and he has to be mindful of that, too. "No excuse, Kate. I have none. At least I got some stuff to wear. And I can make that chocolate cake."

"Not tonight, Castle. Maybe tomorrow."

She looks disappointed in him. She might as well have buried the paring knife that he's using on the green beans right in the middle of his chest. He swallows hard. "Okay. Tomorrow."

It's past nine when they finally eat. Dinner is quiet, but she seems all right. Not angry, at least. After they're done she stands up. "I'm tired. It's been a really long day. Thanks for the pasta, Castle. It was delicious." She squeezes his shoulder and goes to her room. He feels the heat of her hand for a long time, and tries not to mind that she'd eaten only half her dinner.

He stay in the chair for a long time and finally tidies up the kitchen and decides to read. That's when it hits him. Where is he going to sleep? He feels awkward about taking Jim's room. Formerly her parents' room. No way, no way. He roots around until he finds some linens, a blanket, and a spare pillow, and uses them to make a reasonably comfortable bed out of the sofa. She's right. It's been a long day. A long, very eventful day. He's asleep before he even thinks about washing out his shorts, which is all right because he has three pairs of news ones waiting for him in the bag from Harry Meets Sally.

What is that? He opens one eye, his nose already on high alert. It's coffee. Must be his tee shirt that's reminding him, since he's slept in it. He opens the other eye. It's Kate. Kate is in the kitchen and she's made coffee. Shit, that's his job. He rolls out of bed—sofa—and falls on his face, his foot tangled in the blanket that he must have kicked off during the night. She hasn't heard him, so he steals off to the bathroom, cleans up a little, brushes his teeth. When he emerges he sees two mugs on the little table. She's already sitting in one chair, looking out the window. "Hey," he says.

"Hey, Castle. Made you some coffee."

"I'm supposed to be taking care of you, you know."

"And you're supposed to be sleeping in a bed, not on that sofa. Your foot was sticking off the end. You must have had a horrible night."

"No, it was fine."

"You're sleeping in Dad's bed tonight. No arguments. If you think you need permission, I'll write you a note. Get him to text his approval."

"Okay. Thanks." He takes his first sip of coffee. She'd used the Jamaican Blue with the decaf. Good.

"I'm sorry."

Isn't that his line? "Sorry?"

"I was really crabby last night."

" 's okay. You had reason."

"Not really. You've been nothing but kind."

"We're both sorry. Water under the bridge."

"Okay." She takes another sip from her mug. "So, where's this famous chart you've been yammering about?"

"Oh, that's for me, Beckett, not you."

"What? You're marking off days, chart, chart, chart, and I don't get to see it?"

"Day by day."

"Really."

"Yes. You'll get to see each day's entry on the day."

"Well, the day started eight hours ago. What's the entry? Chop, chop, Castle."

"Hair."

"What's that?"

"Hair. Very simple word. What we both have on our heads, in abundance."

"What about it?"

"It's the first line we're going to cross. The hair line. I know it's impossible for you to wash your hair, so I'm going to do it for you. I'm an expert. Shampooed Alexis's hair until she was eight, got too modest, and kicked me out of the bathroom."

"I'm not getting in the tub with you Castle."

"No need. I will shampoo your hair in the kitchen, at the sink. Fully clothed, less you think I'm going to try any funny business."

"Yeah? You gonna put on any underwear?"

TBC

 **A/H** Happy Fourth of July weekend. To all British readers, sorry we dumped your tea in Boston Harbor in 1773. Hope you've forgiven us.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"And here I thought that nothing escaped you, Detective. How wrong I was. Did you not follow the trail of clues?" He pauses to drink some coffee.

His bottom lip is resting on the rim of the blue mug and all she can think about is that his eyes are exactly the same color as it is. Where did that mug come from, anyway? She has to buy a dozen and replace every other mug in the house with them.

"Did you not observe the bag from Harry Meets Sally? Did you not discover, by a mere glance into the bathroom wastebasket, the wrapper from a three-pack of Jockey shorts?" Is she paying attention? "Beckett?"

"Sorry." Clues, did he just say something about clues? He's wrapping his fingers around the mug, and her attention has moved from his eyes to them. Now all she can think about is that those fingers, with their perfectly trimmed nails, are going to be running through her hair in a few minutes when he gives her a shampoo. When she and Castle cross the hair line. "Clues?"

"This is beginning to look like dereliction of duty to me."

"Dereliction?" What the hell is he talking about? His blue eyes are smiling.

"That you don't know that I am, in fact, wearing underwear. I'm wondering if you used mostly decaf when you made the coffee, since it seems you're not fully awake."

"You have underwear?" Shit, her commando fantasies just disappeared, and she'd been really, really enjoying them. "You got more?"

"Good morning! Yes, remember? My little shopping expedition to Harry Meets Sally yesterday? Oh, wait, let me show you what I got!" He goes to fetch the bag and plops it on top of the table. With a flourish, he produces the socks, the two other pairs of shorts, and his three shirts.

He looks as excited as if he'd just been at an Armani sale when he holds the blue tee shirt up to his chest. He had to choose that one to show off, not the green? "Magnificent, Castle," she says. She means it, but he doesn't have to know that. Shouldn't.

"I know, right? They're soft and they're great colors. That place has some bargains, Kate. You shouldn't write if off."

"Lesson learned, Castle. Now get your underwear off the table, please."

He pops everything back into the bag, bows deeply and says, "Yes, ma'am. And now, if you'll excuse me, I shall prepare breakfast. One of succulent delights."

She wishes he hadn't said "succulent," especially attached to "delights." She's squeezing her legs together under the table. Thank God for that. "So, no Cheerios then?"

He's halfway to the stove, but turns around. "Cheerios? Seriously? Do they sound succulent to you?"

Succulent. Again. Is he doing this on purpose? "I'm sure whatever you whip up will be delicious, Castle." Whip? There's another image she needs to erase from her apparently overheated brain.

"Waffles! I'm whipping up waffles! I saw you had a waffle iron."

Whipping. She can't take it anymore. "All right, while you're doing that I'll just take a quick shower."

"They'll be ready when you are," he says cheerfully. Cheeriofully.

There's really no such thing as a quick shower for her these days, not with the time it takes to cover her bandages to make sure that nothing gets wet. Bending over is difficult, too, so she puts soap on a long-handled back brush and washes her legs that way. She's picking out a clean tee shirt when she remembers. Pants. She needs to wear them. She gets a lightweight pair of yoga pants from her drawer, and slips them on. They're not as clingy as usual because she's lost so much weight.

The two of them approach the table at the same moment from opposite ends of the cabin. She looks rosy, almost healthy, though he's disappointed that she's no longer bare-legged. And the pants are way too loose. He should put some chocolate syrup on her waffles. Plus whipped cream. And butter.

"Yum," she says from her chair as he makes a show of presenting her with a plate. "Am I supposed to eat all this?"

"Of course you are. Toppings, too. You can't be eating a naked waffle, it's unseemly."

And now he's talking about naked? Will this never end? "Fine, pass me some of that seemly maple syrup, please." She survives breakfast, barely.

"I'm going to do the dishes and then transform the kitchen into Salon Richard," he says, rising from the table. "Be prepared."

"For what?" She attempts nonchalance. "No tangles, all right? My scalp is very sensitive."

"Monsieur Richard nevair make zee 'ow you say? Zee tang-els. Nevair!"

Good, the laugh is good and distracting. "Terrible French accent, Castle. Truly."

"That may be, but it is no reflection on my abilities as a coiffurist, I assure you. So, go do whatever you want, just be back here in twenty minutes. And bring your comb and brush."

"Geez, you coiffurists sure are bossy. I'll sit outside until then."

"That's not merely outside, Madame. That is the garden room."

"My mistake, Monsieur Richard."

She feels a hand, a not-yet-familiar-enough hand, touching her lightly on the elbow, and she shakes her head. "Castle?"

"Sorry to wake you, but I was afraid you might get a burn out here. You're probably not wearing sun block."

"Wasn't asleep. I just sat down. Can't burn in one minute."

His hands are on his hips. "That's probably true, but it's been forty minutes."

"What? Not possible."

"Okay, check your watch. And take a look inside. The dishes are done and put away, the salon's set up. Oh, and I read two short stories in the book I've borrowed on your father's library card. I was very careful not to drop food on it, in case you're worried." He puts his hand out to help her up. "It's time to cross the hair line!"

"Thanks. I'll get my comb and brush."

When she returns and walks into the kitchen, she's amazed. It's hardly a salon, but he had put a cushion on one of the kitchen chairs and rigged up something for her to rest her neck on when she had to tilt her head back over the sink. Shampoo, conditioner, and a hairdryer, all of which he must brought from the bathroom, are lined up neatly on the counter. "What's that?" she asks, pointing to a plastic sheet that's folded over the back of the chair.

"Oh, that's a smock thing so you don't get wet."

"Smock thing? It looks suspiciously like a shower curtain. In fact, suspiciously like the one in the bathroom here."

"Good to see that your detective powers have been restored. Must have been my waffles. Anyway, yes, it is the shower curtain. I took it down and ran some ribbon—I found it in a kitchen drawer—through the grommets. I'll drape it around you and tie the ribbon and you'll be completely dry. Except your hair, of course."

A few minutes later, he's pouring warm water over her head. She's surprised by the comfortable cushiony thing that's supporting her neck. "What is this, Castle? That's under my neck?"

"That? Oh. I found a hot water bottle in the back of the cabinet in the bathroom, so I filled it about three-quarters full with warm water and then wrapped a big towel around it. Is it all right?"

She wiggles her head a little. "I thought it was going to be awkward, but it's actually a lot better than the awful sink that cradles my head when I'm getting a shampoo and a hair cut."

"Thank you. I try to be resourceful. Now relax and let me do my job."

"Bossy. Okay."

Initially, she's relaxed. Super relaxed. In her 31 years on the planet, she's never had a better shampoo. His touch is perfect, at the nexus of hard and soft. The water temperature is ideal. He never lets soap get into her eyes. He doesn't pull her hair; his fingers are magic. She's beginning to fall into a dream state when something changes. He's added conditioner, and the entire experience shifts: PG to NC-17 in five seconds. He's massaging her scalp as if he were Michelangelo working with clay. He's practically caressing her wet hair, lifting it up, squeezing it, then massaging again. It's almost an orgasmic experience. The only thing that's keeping her from arching her back and lifting her hips off the chair is the pain it would cause in her chest. She's fighting every impulse she has to keep herself still, but she devotes so much energy to it that she forgets to censor her mouth. It's as though she controlled the video portion of a program and completely ignored the audio. His thumbs are at her temples when she lets go: it's a deep, erotic moan that courses through arteries, arterioles, and capillary bed, through heart and lungs and up through her throat until it pushes her sealed lips open, escapes into the humid air in the kitchen, and reverberates. "Holy fuck," she says, digging her nails into her palms. "Do that again."

It's the sexiest thing he's ever heard, and the atmosphere is so charged that he almost moans, too. He prays to all that's holy, whatever it may be, that he can do it again, since he's not entirely sure how he elicited this response. He doesn't say a word, just concentrates on replicating what he'd done before, ending by pressing his thumbs softly against her temples. That's it. This time he can almost track the moan as it travels through her body, as if it were shooting through the pneumatic tubes that used to carry messages at high speed underground in New York City. He's so transfixed that it's a shock when he feels her clutch his thigh.

Her eyes pop open and she finds that they're looking straight into his. She's having trouble catching her breath, but she's vaguely aware that her hand has caught something. His leg. She yanks her arm back so quickly that she nearly slaps herself. "Oh, my God."

"Wow," he says. "Wow."

"Castle?"

"Wow."

"Stop saying 'wow' and let me sit up. I have to dry my hair."

"I'll dry it."

"Not sure I can take it."

He helps her into a sitting position and they both start to laugh, and they stop only when it's too much of a strain on her chest. "You okay, Kate?" he asks, almost soberly.

"Gotta ask you something."

"Do. Please, please do."

"Are all the line crossings gonna be like this?"

"I certainly hope so." And they laugh all over again.

"Gimme that list, Castle."

"No way. I want to surprise you."

"Fine. Now, I'm going to get up in as dignified a manner as possible, all right? I think I'll just let my hair dry on its own."

"This is a full-service establishment, you know. Blow dry is part of the package."

"Maybe another time. Like twenty days from now." And with that she picks up her comb and brush and retreats to her room. She's almost there when she looks back over her shoulder. "Thank you. Thank you, Rick." And then she disappears.

"Wow," he says again, as soon as he's sure that she's out of earshot. "I think I need to cool down with some Dostoevsky." He reads off and on for an hour, sitting on the porch and very aware that she's less than fifty feet away, doing physical therapy that takes everything out of her. He's tracking a bee that's buzzing around some wildflowers when he senses movement in the cabin. Kate's standing inside the screen door. With her hair loose and untamed she looks like a Botticelli, if any Botticelli beauty had worn an oversized NYPD tee shirt and blue flip-flops.

"Hey," she says softly.

"Hey."

"I was thinking. Maybe we could cross two lines today since we didn't do one yesterday. You know, stay on schedule. But only if you have a very, very safe and calm line."

His heart is going to explode, and then where will he be? His mind is racing through the chart. "I do. I do. Story."

"Story?"

"Story line. I'm going to tell you a story."

"What story?"

"The story of us."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you for reading this. Happy Independence Day. Rejoice in your independence, wherever you may live.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N** Reviewer Eslssl sent this prompt, after chapter 12: "Story line: Rick could read to Kate." Thank you very much for the idea, which I've adapted slightly so that he's telling her a story.

 **Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Despite the screen and the backlighting he can clearly see her face, which is a blend—three equal parts, he thinks—of embarrassment, surprise, and pleasure. She stands in the doorway for quite a while, saying nothing, her right hand playing with the little latch on the jamb. Finally she says, tentatively, "Didn't you do that already? I mean, Nikki and Rook?"

He beams. "Aren't you the one who's always insisting that they're not us?"

"Well, yeah."

"Okay, then. This is the real us."

"Is it going to begin 'Once upon a time'?"

"If you want it to."

She looks down at her feet and flicks the latch back and forth, back and forth. "You're the writer. You decide."

"It's _our_ story, Kate."

"Right." Still looking at her feet. "You choose, though."

"Okay. You want to come out here or have me join you inside?"

"I'll come out," she says, and swings the door open. " 'm pretty wiped after my PT. It'll feel good to sit in a rocking chair."

"You gonna fall asleep while I'm talking?"

"Not unless this is a bedtime story."

"Not yet."

"Castle."

"Gotcha." He reaches out to pat the seat of the chair next to his. "C'mon, I saved you a place."

She sits in the rocker and leans back, as fully relaxed as he's seen her. "This is nice."

"You want anything? Before I begin spinning a tale?"

"It's hot. Maybe lemonade? Yeah, that's what I'd like, please."

When he returns with their drinks, he's afraid that she's nodded off, but she lifts her head and he sees the trace of a smile. "You ready for the story?"

"I am."

He shifts his chair so that it's at a 45-degree angle to hers, takes a sip of lemonade, and begins. "When they met he was a grown man with a daughter in high school, but his emotional age was sixteen."

She snorts. "Fifteen, tops."

"Whose story is this, anyway?"

"You said it was ours, Castle."

"Good point. Still."

"Sorry, no more interruptions from me."

"His emotional age was _fifteen_."

"That's more like it," she mouths.

"If he'd been a baseball player—and by the way, she knows a hundred times more about baseball than he does—rather than a writer, he'd have been doomed from the start, first trip to the plate. Strike one: he underestimated her intelligence. Strike two: he underestimated her tenacity. Strike three: he underestimated her hair."

Kate's head jerks back and her eyebrows shoot up so high and fast they look as if they'll fly off her forehead. Instinctively, she puts a hand to her hair.

"Yes, strange as it sounds, he underestimated her hair. He was very proud of his own, the mane of a lion." She kicks him lightly on the shin. "Ouch."

"I'm wearing flip-flops, you big baby. That can't possibly have hurt."

"Hmpff." He rubs his leg dramatically. "As I was saying, before you destroyed the narrative flow, he underestimated her hair. That growing-out pixie cut and the color threw him off. He'd been on a steady diet of blondes, a smorgasbord of blondes, all with long or at least longish hair. You'd think, given his record with said long- or longish-haired blondes, that he would have welcomed her hair, but he didn't. He didn't like it. She was tough, and he was used to soft. Well, okay, Gina was—is—tough, but in a different way. That's what made her a challenge, which he did like. But the hair, the hair seemed too severe, too the-hell-with-you-I-can-look-any-way-I-want."

She doesn't look pleased at this bit of disclosure.

"You know, before I go on, because that look you're giving me makes me feel as though I'm about to dig my own grave, I just want to say that while this is our story, it's our story from my point of view." He drinks some more lemonade. "It's kind of limited omniscient because much as I'd love to read your mind, Kate, I can't."

Now her look shifts into something steady and neutral. She waits several seconds before saying, "Sometimes. Sometimes you can, Castle."

He hopes that she can't see the sudden acceleration of his heart rate. At least he's not bare-chested anymore, but the pulse against his new (blue) tee shirt feels almost overwhelming. "He learned, or began to learn, a lot of things very quickly, like to stay in the car." He knows she'll break her vow of silence for that, so he quickly adds, "Okay, it took a while to master that one. He learned a lot about good, no, great police work. About how much drudgery you have to go through for the reward, which makes the reward sweeter. And since he is, or used to be, an instant-gratification guy, that was a huge deal. Watching her work the details, details, details, run down a hundred blind alleys, was what made him realize exactly how tenacious she is. How much that means if you're going to be a good cop."

Stopping to take another sip, he takes a sideways glance to try to judge her reaction. She seems not exactly impassive, because she's definitely engaged, but something. It's the look of someone who's waiting before she judges. Waiting for the evidence. Waiting to weigh everything. That's Beckett. And Kate, too.

"Almost from the beginning, his favorite thing was seeing her interrogate someone. Those hapless jerks don't have a prayer. The three zees: zip, zilch, zero. They should save themselves the hurt and just sign a confession the minute she comes in the room, pulls out the chair, and looks at them. Even before she sits down.

"But over time, something else went to the top of his personal Katherine Beckett Hit Parade. It was her compassion and her kindness. Looking back—in one of his reflective periods brought on by his having realized, if not always acknowledged, that he'd behaved badly in some way—he knew when it started. Their second case. The way she treated Chloe, the nanny who killed her friend. He told her that he'd liked the way she ran the sisterhood thing, and she told him that she hadn't run anything."

There's no breeze, but the air moves a little. It's Kate, in her rocking chair. She's pushing herself gently with the toes of her right foot, but her eyes are locked on him. "You know, that's the kind of thing that makes my Nikki Heat books good. I could have turned something out, some piece of snappy sexy crap, after following you for a week. Probably sold a lot, too, especially with more sex and less detective work. But it's the cumulative wealth I've gotten from following you around, from getting to work with you and Ryan and Espo, that make the Nikki and Rook books really good."

Does that sound too arrogant? Well, the books are good, dammit. There's no reason for false humility, especially here. Besides, she'd see right through it.

"But to return to the eternally fascinating subject of her hair. He figured it out. Kind of embarrassing how long it took him, though not as long as it took her hair to grow. What he finally understood was that she wore her hair like that because she was, is, a woman in a male-dominated field. She wore her hair like that precisely because she's gorgeous. Keeping it short, no-nonsense, dark, was part of her armor against all the sexist BS she had to deal with all the time. And he knows the moment when he really noticed the spectacularness of her hair."

"Spectacularness?"

"You can change the word—"

"Not a word."

"Spectacularness. Spectacularitude. When you're telling the story, you can change it."

"Spectacularity."

"Geez, Beckett."

"Sorry."

"I take it that you're acknowledging that you have spectacular hair. So. It was the vampire murder, that case at Hallowe'en. She whipped her head around and he smelled her cherry shampoo and that did it. He knew, k-n-e-w, that she had dropped that piece of armor because she didn't need it any more. She had a different kind of confidence by then, different from the brittler kind she had when they'd met. There was a little part—big part, big, big part—of him that was already hoping that it was at least partly to do with him. Because by then he also knew for sure that he was a goner. He was totally in love with her."

That feels like the right place to stop. It's a line crossing, a story line crossing.

She's still rocking, and still looking at him, but more softly, with real gentleness in her eyes. But she's quiet. Is she ever going to say anything? He starts counting, and he's on a hundred and eight-six when she puts both feet flat on the porch floor, which makes the chair motionless.

"That's not the end, though, right?"

"No, it's definitely to-be-continued."

"Good. That's the best kind of story."

"Well, next to 'And they lived happily ever after'."

She leaves it at that and they spend the next few hours doing very little. He makes lunch, they both read. When he's polished off both his dessert—strawberry shortcake—and the handful of Eudora Welty stories that he'd never read before, he closes the book with a snap.

"Want to go into town?"

"Why are you going into town? Another fashion extravaganza on your horizon?"

"I have a couple of things I want to do, including returning this book I borrowed."

She slaps her thigh. "I knew it! You're going to make a pass at the librarian!"

"Have you ever seen that movie?"

"What movie?"

" _The Librarian_."

"God, no."

"You should. It's a trilogy, classic. There's this great scene in the last one where the librarian—a guy librarian, by the way—meets this singer. She sort of looks sort of like you, funnily enough. And he says to her, 'This might sound like a bad pickup line, but you're the woman I've been dreaming about.' And she says, 'You're right, it does sound like a bad pick-up line'."

"That's your idea of a great scene, Castle? That scintillating dialogue?"

"Don't knock it, Beckett. I've made millions of dollars off scintillating dialogue like that. I'd be proud to have written that."

She stretches and closes her eyes. It hurts, this stretch. "Not sure I'm up to going with you."

"It'll do you good to get out of here for a while. Besides, my car has phenomenal shocks. You won't feel even the tiniest pebble in the road, I promise. And I'll drive really, really slowly."

"You? That's hard to believe. Besides, if you drive too slowly Sergeant Nelson will arrest you."

"Yeah, about that."

TBC

 **A/N** Many readers have asked for 19 more chapters, a "Line" per chapter. Nooooo! I will be combining them in future. Still several to go, though.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

He fesses up to speeding on the way back from Williams the previous day. Tells her about his encounter with Slim-'n'-Trim Sarge, who'd given him a big, fat ticket. What he doesn't mention is the love nest part: she doesn't need to hear that and he sure as hell isn't going to unload it. She's pissed off enough off as it is.

"What were you thinking, Castle?"

He's almost hypnotized as she yanks her hair with both hands, which makes it even sexier than it had been. Wild, stormy. He could tame it in an instant, wishes that he could, but she's expecting an answer. "Thinking? I was thinking about how much I wanted to get here to you. I felt terrible that I let time get away from me, that you were worried that something had happened."

"That's sweet, but not an acceptable excuse. You know, you were sticking out like a red thumb the minute you wheeled into town. Way before you decided to drive home like a lunatic."

"Sore thumb."

"Red thumb. As in the color of your car. Your Ferrari. People around here drive Ford pick-ups, Castle. Kia hatchbacks. Not billion-dollar Italian sports cars."

"For the record, it cost only—"

"Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't want to know the sticker price. My point is, Sergeant Nelson was probably waiting to pounce on you if you went even five miles over the limit in your fancy-shmantzy car. I bet it made his day to be able to pull you over."

"Oh, I bet it did. He called me cattle, by the way. Mister Cattle."

That makes her laugh, dispels her irritation. "Did you tell him that was bull?"

"Nice, Beckett. No, I didn't. For starters, I didn't want to poke the bear. You could see how taken he is with his Smokey the Bear hat. I think he might starch it. Ditto his underwear."

That makes her laugh, too, enough that she agrees to go with him when he pays his ticket. While she's changing, he decides to text Jim, ashamed that he hadn't done so sooner. He's already been here for days and her father must be anxious for a report. No, wait, it hasn't been days. It hasn't been even two full days. It's only Tuesday? That's hard to believe. He's not quite ready to text, after all; he needs a moment, more than, to ruminate on everything that's happened since yesterday morning, when she found him sweeping up the coffee beans.

It's still very warm out, but he shivers. He and Kate have covered more ground in thirty-two hours than they had in three years. Shivering cedes to trembling: the thought of things to come is almost too much for him. His heart constricts with need for it, but he's learning to love the pleasures of anticipation. "Who'd have thought it?" he says aloud, startling himself. He's glad that he's outside and she's in, that she can't hear him. He doesn't want to explain. Not yet. Instead, he types out a quick message to his future father-in-law—what? Oh, God, her mind-reading sensor better be switched off.

"Hi, Jim. Things are fine here. Kate's making progress and I'm making sure that she eats three square meals a day. She's even agreed to go into Williams. Maybe she'll give me the guided tour. Hope your case is going well. Rick"

The reply is almost immediate. "Thanks, Rick. Happy to hear it. Do you need to get back to the city soon?"

Does he need to get back to the city? Wild horses couldn't drag him back to the city. A 730 horsepower engine couldn't drag him back to the city. Hmm. He looks at the text again. Like father, like daughter? Subtext there, subtext. Is Jim wondering if he can stay up here for a while to help Kate, and not leave on Friday as planned? He's not asking outright. Of course. For all the Becketts' directness, they can also be excruciatingly indirect.

"Not at all. Alexis is at college prep camp until mid August and I can write from anywhere." Not that he's doing any writing. Not when he can be hanging out with you-know-who. What he's doing now is mentally crossing his fingers that the other father in this text exchange is going to say that he can't get away this weekend and would Rick mind keeping his daughter company?

When Jim's next text arrives, Castle considers the possibility of genetically-encoded mind reading. "Would you mind keeping Katie company, as you put it the other night? This case is moving faster than I'd expected and I could really use the weekend to work on it."

"I'd be delighted, though I'm sure Kate will miss seeing you." It's all he can do not to add a dozen celebratory emojis at the end.

"Thank you. I'm relieved to know she's in such good hands."

Oh, don't think about that. Not hands. Not allowed to use his hands yet. Crossing the line. He's just clicked off the phone when he hears her approach.

"Castle? You ready?"

"You bet. Let's roll."

When they reach the car he goes to the passenger side and opens the door for her. "What's that?" she asks, pointing to her seat.

"Extra cushions. Figured you might want them. Bumpy road, even with the great shock absorbers."

"Thanks," she says, settling into the downy pillows.

He drives at a pace just above that of the average 90-year-old, and when they're almost there he asks, "So, where do I pay my ticket? Is there a town hall or something?"

"Ha, you wish. You have to go to the police station."

"Oh, shit."

"Maybe you'll get lucky and Nelson will be out."

"Do I have to make a plea?"

She snickers. "A plea? You mean like 'no contest'? Or in your case, 'guilty as all hell'? No, you just pay the fine and skedaddle."

"Always wanted to visit a place where people skedaddle, Kate."

"Shut up. And by the way, you just drove by it." She feels him start to turn the wheel. "No! Do not make a u-ey in the middle of Main Street."

He straightens the wheel in time and, spotting an empty parking space just ahead, pulls to the curb. When he cuts the engine, he turns to her. "Main Street? Really?"

"Really. If you turn left two blocks ahead you'll be on Hatchet Street. Don't ask. Now help me out of this damn car, please."

They walk back a hundred yards to the police station. To his visible relief, Sergeant Nelson is not on the premises. There's a downy-cheeked cop in the back of the room, apparently engrossed in paperwork, and a woman with improbably red hair who looks up from her desk when the door opens.

"Good afternoon," Castle says.

"Afternoon. Can I help you?"

"Yes. I'm here to pay my fine for, um, speeding. Yesterday. I have it right here. The ticket, I mean." He pulls it from his back pocket, a little embarrassed that it's so crumpled, and runs his palm over it in a futile attempt to flatten it.

By now the ersatz redhead—not that much more ersatz than his mother, now that he gets a better look—has come to the counter. She picks up the ticket and examines it as carefully if it were a death warrant. "Richard Cattle. Right. Guy with the Ferrari. Don't get a lot of those around here. Cash or credit card?"

That's it? No lecture? No warning on the perils of driving unsafely in their hamlet and its bucolic environs? Apparently not. "Credit. Might as well get the points, right?"

She glowers. "To go with the point on your license. Fine."

He'd rather have had the lecture he thinks, as he pushes his credit card across the scratched wooden counter top.

"Huh, American Express Centurion card? Don't get a lot of those around here, either. More like never."

"Right." What is he supposed to say? He looks at Kate, who is a model of impassivity.

Ms. Red returns his card, asks him to sign, and gives him a receipt. "Don't be a stranger, Mr. Cattle. We can use money like that around here." And with that she does a u-ey in her black, thick-soled sneakers and returns to her desk. He can just hear Kate making little strangled noises as they make their escape.

"Thanks for the moral support, Beckett," he says once they're clear of the building.

"I thought she was very reasonable."

"Didn't seem to know you."

"Nope."

"Well, aren't you the chatterbox. Care to accompany me to the far friendlier confines of the library?"

"I would," she says, and stuns him by slipping her hand in the crook of his elbow. He wisely makes no comment, but he misses the touch of her when she withdraws her hand as they turn up the path to the library.

Damn, the door's locked. The little sign says CLOSED, but the lights are still on, so he takes a chance and knocks. The librarian peeps out. "Rick!"

"Susanna! Hi!" He holds up the volume of Welty stories. "I just wanted to return this. Finished it this afternoon."

"Come in," she says, opening the door wide. "Katie. It's so good to see you up and about. You doing all right?"

"Coming along, thanks, Susanna. Slowly."

"That must be driving you nuts, then. Slowly has never been in your repertoire."

"You got that right," Castle says.

"Well, Rick. Looks like you availed yourself of the riches of Harry Meets Sally."

"You recognize the tee shirt?" He runs a palm proudly across his chest.

"Unmistakable."

"I got three! All different colors."

"Good choice."

"Are you fashionistas going to be having a long conversation?" Kate asks, deadpan. "If so, I'll just take a seat over here until you're done."

She's tired. Shit. He's worn her out. What an idiot. "Nope. I don't want to keep Susanna, and besides, we have to get going." He bows to the librarian. "Thank you for letting us in. And thank you for letting me borrow that fantastic book."

"Anytime. Come back again and I might give you your own card."

"That's an offer I will accept with glee."

"Night, you two," Susanna says as they make their way to the door. "Don't overdo it, Katie. And don't be a stranger, Rick."

"You're the second person who's said that to me today, Susanna. Maybe I should move here."

They walk slowly down the short path, and when they reach the end she digs her nails into his forearm. "What did you _do_ to her, Castle?" she hisses. "She never lets anyone in after hours."

"Nothing. Just my charming self. I might have to show her my new underwear the next time I'm here." He pauses a beat. "Seriously, Kate. You look exhausted, and it's my fault. We shouldn't have walked this much. Let's get something to eat. Is there a diner or something?"

"Yeah, down there. About five blocks."

"Stay here, I'll get the car."

Five minutes later they're in a booth at the Williams Diner. "The chicken pot pie is fantastic," Kate says as they look over two menus that could well have been unchanged since 1987. "I have to go to the ladies room. Will you order for me, please, if someone comes?"

Just seconds after she's gone, the waitress, who looks at least five years younger than the menu, appears. "What can I get you?" she asks, her ribboned pony tail swinging against her sunburned neck.

"We'll have two chicken pot pies, please, and two coffees," Castle says, lifting his head to smile at her.

She freezes. "Richard Castle? Oh, my God, you're Richard Castle. I can't believe it. Oh, my God. You're like totally amazingly awesome. I've read _Heat Wave_ like ten times. At least. More, maybe. Oh, my God, when my friend Christy finds out. I have to text her when I'm on my break. She will freak out. Oh, my God. I cannot believe I'm waiting on you."

"Thank you, uh. I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"Maybeth. I'm Maybeth. I can't believe you're in Williams. I'll put your order in right now. Oh, my God."

"Thank you," he says, offering her his best—and unquestionably sincere—smile. "Ah, here's my friend."

"Maybeth? Is that you?" Kate gives the girl a hug. "You got your braces off. You look beautiful."

Maybeth's cheeks turn red as the checkerboard tablecloth. "Katie? You're here with him? I mean Richard Castle? Oh, my God, of course, because you're Ni—. I mean, uh."

"She's not really Nikki, Maybeth," Castle whispers. "We work together is all. She's a huge help to me in my writing."

"Right. Your writing. Right. I'll put your order in. Sorry."

Castle watches the girl's ponytail disappear through the swinging door to the kitchen. "Now _that's_ skedaddling, Beckett."

"I can't believe she's so grown up."

"Grown up? She can't be more than sixteen."

"That's about right. I used to sit for her when she was a baby and a toddler. Yeah she's sixteen. Oh, you know what? This is funny. She's Maybeth Nelson."

"Nelson?" He leans across the table and says quietly but urgently, "As in Sergeant No-Doughnuts Nelson?"

"The very one. He's her Dad."

"Oh, God."

"Control yourself, Castle. She'll be back any minute."

She is, bearing a tray with their dinners which she manages to deliver without dropping or spilling anything, despite her being in Castle's thrall. "Enjoy your meal," she says.

Kate suppresses a giggle. "I thought she was going to curtsy to you."

"Eat your pot pie before it gets cold, Nikki."

Halfway through Kate begins to fade, the day having caught up with her. "Sorry," she says, yawning for the third time. "It's not the company, it's me."

"Let me get the check, and we'll go home."

"No, no. Finish. Besides, I don't want to deprive Maybeth of getting her fill of you. She's been keeping an eye on you through the kitchen window."

"Really?" He starts to turn around.

"Castle! Don't look! You'll embarrass her."

"Fine. I'm almost done. And you were right, it's fantastic." After he swallows the last forkful and wipes his mouth with a paper napkin, he does turn slightly in his seat, raising his hand.

Maybeth comes through the door like a rodeo cowboy on a bull, with something in her hand. When she reaches the table she thrusts a book and a pen at Castle. "Would you sign this, please?"

"You had a copy here?" he asks, truly taken aback.

"What? No! No, I ran home while you were eating. It's only a couple of blocks. It's my copy. See? You can tell I've read it a lot. I had to put like tape on the dust jacket in like two places where I accidentally tore it."

"Well, I'm very flattered, Maybeth. Thank you." He writes in the book and hands it back. "Do you have our check, please?"

"Oh! Sorry. Yes, right here. Thank you for coming in. Thank you so much. And Katie, too. Geez."

"Great to see you, Maybeth."

"You, too. Bye." She clutches the book to her chest and disappears again, but they can see her flipping open _Heat Wave_ before she's through the door.

"Beckett, she's much too young to be reading that book. At least some of it."

"Hmm. What did you write in there?"

"Something that won't get her into trouble if her father sees it." He stands up. "Ready to go?"

"Yup." She slides out from behind the table and looks at the check that's next to his plate. "Is that a hundred-dollar bill you left for her?"

"It is." He can't help winking. "Don't you think the pies were worth it?"

"Definitely."

He keeps to the speed limit on the return trip, but doesn't dawdle. Kate had fallen asleep a mile out of town, and doesn't stir even when they hit the loose gravel of the driveway. He parks as close as possible to the cabin, gets out of the car, opens her door, and scoops her into his arms.

She wakes when he's climbing the short flight of stairs to the porch. "Castle?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm taking you to bed."

"What?" She struggles as if to get down. "You can't do that."

"Stop it, Kate. You're exhausted and I'm carrying you to bed. Now hold on because I don't want to drop you while I unlock this door."

"Are you fucking crazy, Castle? Let me down."

"I may be crazy," he says, somehow managing to keep her in his arms while he maneuvers the key, "but I'm definitely not fucking. Not since January."

"Are you kidding?"

"Nope. Not since I broke up with Gina."

"Well," she says, burying her face in his blue tee shirt. "That's the best news I've heard in forever."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you for reading. Hope you're enjoying the weekend.


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Castle laughs so hard that he really does almost drop her, but stays on course. "I think that may qualify as line crossing, Kate," he says, steadying them both.

"You started it," she semi-protests, very sleepily.

Her bedroom door is ajar, and he pushes it open with his foot. When he reaches her bed he sets her down exactly as he had yesterday (yesterday!), very gently. She's asleep, or at least almost there, so he takes off her shoes. Should he wake her so she can brush her teeth and wash her face, or let her be? He opts for the latter: she's worn out and needs uninterrupted rest more than clean teeth. Now he's faced with the second question: take her jeans off or leave them on? This time he chooses the former because she'll be uncomfortable if she sleeps all night in her pants. It's one thing to unzip them, but quite another to peel them off her, even if they're relatively loose because of the weight she's lost over the last few weeks.

The trouble is that every time he manages to get the jeans almost to her hips, her panties come with them. He's doing his damnedest not to look, but really: they're scarlet and have lacy edging and a tiny red satin bow. Torture, this is freaking torture. She's torturing him. Okay, not deliberately, but still. On the fourth try, he gets it right: he holds her panties up with one hand while he pushes her jeans down with the other. It's awkward—awkward in ways he can't afford to think about yet—but it works. Except that just as the waistband of her pants reaches the middle of her thighs, she wakes up.

"Castle?"

"Go back to sleep, Kate." But she grabs her jeans and starts hauling them back up, so he puts his (much larger) hand over hers to stop its progress. "I'm taking these off so that you can get a restful night. You'd hate waking up and finding that you're still in your jeans. I've been there, I know."

"Not in my jeans, you haven't."

"Regrettably no, not in your jeans. But in my own, and when I do I feel all creaky and ancient." He takes his hand away but looks right into her eyes, in case she has any doubts. "Please don't tell me that you're worried about my seeing you in your undies. You were walking around in them all day yesterday. But now that you're awake again you can get these jeans off all by yourself. See you in the morning, okay?"

"Okay."

He reaches the door in four strides and closes it quietly behind him. Unlike Kate, he's wide awake. It's still fairly early; there's enough light left in the sky, combined with the light that's coming through the kitchen window, that he can stay on the porch for a while with his book. He quickly settles into a pattern: read five or six pages of _The Brothers Karamazov_ , stop and think, not just about the novel but about Kate. Eventually it's too dark, so he goes inside and stretches out on the sofa, where he reestablishes the read-think-read-think cycle. At some point he becomes uncomfortably aware of the crick in his neck; he should go to bed. Though he's a little reluctant to take Jim's room, he does. His back will thank him, especially now that he's not going to be leaving on Friday. Oh. Whoops, he hadn't mentioned that to Kate. He will, he will. Maybe her Dad already called to tell her. Or texted.

When he goes to the bathroom and turns on the light he finds a Post-it note in the middle of the mirror. It's Wonder Woman! Oh, my God, is it from when she was little? Does she have a cache of these? She's left him a message:

"Thanks, Castle. You were right."

Beneath it she had drawn a pair of jeans, which she had enclosed in a red circle with a red diagonal line running through it. He reads it over and over while he brushes his teeth. After he's done, he peels it off the mirror and takes it to Jim's/his room, opens his wallet and carefully attaches the little note to his New York Public Library card. When he gets in bed, he listens to the country sounds; he's not used to them, at least not ones like these. These are woodsy sounds, very different from the ones he hears in the Hamptons, which hardly qualifies as the country, certainly not in summer. He's almost asleep when he thinks of something, and sits up. A plan— a "line" plan—has surfaced and he'll need to be up before she is. Five-thirty should be early enough. He sets the alarm on his phone, rolls onto his side, and as he drifts off thinks how glad he is that a little package had caught his eye when he was in the grocery store, how glad he is that he had tossed it in the basket.

Maybe it's all the years of single parenthood, but he wakes a half an hour early. By 5:10 he's in the kitchen, assembling what he needs for his early-morning project. He tears open one of the little packages of yeast—his impulse purchase at the market—and dissolves it in a bowl of warm water. Not long after, he's kneading dough. He'd forgotten how soothing it was; he hasn't done this in years, but he remembers every step. With the dough rising in a greased bowl on the kitchen counter, he makes himself a cup of coffee and walks down to the pond. There's a wooden platform there where he can sit and dip his feet into the water. Geez! Freezing! He waits a minute or two and puts in a big toe. Ah, not so bad that way. He swishes it around, yeah, not bad. Maybe they should have breakfast down here. He could carry the chairs and—dammit. A mosquito. It must have been the size of the robin Kate was so taken with before. And here's another one, taking a hunk out of his calf. Of course there are mosquitoes here; they like water and it's dawn, just time for them to have a snack—him—before their bedtime. "I'm skedaddling!" he says, and runs back to the house, in such a hurry to escape the voracious mosquitoes that he's unaware of the remnants of his coffee sloshing onto his blue tee shirt.

The dough has risen enough; he rolls it out, brushes it with butter, and sprinkles it with cinnamon, raisins, and some pecans that he'd found in the freezer. Now he rolls it up, cuts it into slices, puts them in a pan and lets them sit to rise again. He has 45 minutes to kill before putting them in the oven; might as well shower. When he pulls his tee shirt over his head he finds the coffee stain. _Nyet problema_ , as Dostoevsky would say. Or not. It'll come out in the wash; besides, he has two other shirts now. After he dries off and shaves, he considers the new tees: he gravitates to the red one. No other choice, really, not with the vision of Kate's little bikinis floating around in his brain.

Back in the kitchen, he takes a piece of paper from the pad next to the phone, writes a brief note on it and puts it on the floor about ten feet from the stove. The timer goes off just as he starts a full pot of coffee, so he takes his culinary masterpiece out of the oven and puts it on a rack to cool. He figures she'll be out in two minutes: no way can she sleep with this delicious smell permeating the cabin.

Less than two. Here she comes now, walking slowly through the living room, her head tilted up as she inhales deeply.

"Morning, Kate. Drawn from your bed by an olfactory magnet, I see."

"Proud of yourself for that one, are you?"

"Pretty much. Wait! Stop right where you are!"

She halts, and looks behind her. "Is there something coming after me that I don't know about? A bear, maybe?"

"No, there's something in front of you," he says, pointing to the floor. "You're about to step on it."

Lowering her eyes, she reads aloud, "Warning, you're about to cross the line," then looks the question at him. "Mmm?"

With his hand protected by a pot holder, he picks up the pan and tilts it towards her. "The breadline."

"Breadline, huh? Those look a lot like rolls to me, not bread."

"Yeah? Well, trust me. You eat one of these and you won't be having this semantical debate with me anymore. You'll be in cinnamon heaven. This is bread, Beckett, that just happens to be in the shape of rolls. So there."

She laughs. "Hard to argue with a debate ender like that one. 'So there.' I'll just go sit down at the table. You going to serve that so-called bread or what?"

"I am, as soon as I pour the coffee that will accompany it. Keep your shirt on."

"You've kept yours on, I see. Changed it, actually."

"Yup." It would not be a good idea to tell her that he selected it to match her underwear, so he doesn't. "And there's more where this came from. Prepare to be dazzled again tomorrow by another color." And with that he delivers a mug of coffee to her, along with a plate that's home to a warm, gooey, cinnamon roll. Plopping down opposite her, he waits for her to take the first bite. He's rewarded instantly.

"Oh, my God, Castle," she says. "This is unbelievable. Best thing I've ever tasted." She pulls another piece from the roll, chews, swallows, and licks the frosting from the tip of her finger. It's hypnotic; he can't take his eyes off her. She does it again. "You know what this reminds me of?"

"No." Do that again, please. Lick your finger and your lip, please, please, please.

"That hilarious scene in _Victor/Victoria_ when Victoria is starving and can't pay the rent and her landlord is about to throw her out. She notices that he has spaghetti sauce on his tie or the napkin that's tucked into his collar, I don't remember which, and she takes her finger and wipes the sauce off and eats it? And then she says, 'I'd sleep with you for a meatball'."

The coffee that he had foolishly put in his mouth as she was halfway through this movie memory comes right out of his nose and onto his new red shirt. He doesn't care. Totally worth it. Even his almost-scorched skin is worth it. She's laughing while he regains his ability to speak, or gasp, anyway. "You saying you'd sleep with me for a meatball, Beckett?"

"Dunno, Castle," she says, eyes sparkling. "I've never had one of your meatballs."

This elicits another round of coughing. "You'll have to excuse me," he says, almost choking as he pushes his chair from the table. "I need to change my shirt. Again. And take a cold shower."

"If she keeps this up," he mutters to the bathroom mirror while he wipes the coffee from his bare chest, "I'm going to have to live in the cold shower. Maybe I could just stand in the pond for the next nineteen days." He towels off, puts on the green tee shirt, and runs his fingers through his hair. "Okay. I can take it."

"Nice shirt," she says when he reappears. "Kind of the color of money."

"It should be. Set me back nine ninety-nine plus tax."

"May I ask you something?"

Is she kidding? "Sure. Ask away."

"May I have another cinnamon roll?"

He pretends to weigh his answer. She deserves to wait. "Only if you admit that you crossed the breadline."

A smile that would melt the frosting on the tops of all the rolls, that would melt the entire polar ice cap, takes over her face. "I admit it. I crossed the breadline."

"That's all I ask," he says primly, turning to the kitchen to get her a refill. Liar, liar, pants on fire, that is so, so, so not the only thing he's asking. He brings her a second roll.

"Thank you. I can't believe you made these, Castle. When did you get up, anyway?"

"I don't know." Another lie. It was 5:01:54.

"Did you not sleep well in Dad's bed?"

"No, no it was great. I think the birds woke me. Not used to all this nature like you. I like it, though."

"Yeah?" She's suddenly a little shy. "You do?"

"Yeah."

When he smiles at her she wonders if the ice cubes in the freezer just melted. "So, you got big plans for today?"

"Believe it or not, I'm going to write. 'm a little behind. I'll leave you in peace for a little. Bet you never thought you'd hear those words pass my lips, right? Oh! I forgot! Your Dad texted me last night." After I texted him, he does not add.

"Really? How come?"

"He, uh, he said his case is really, you know, heating up and he wondered if I could stay up here so that he could work through the weekend."

"What did you say?" she asks, looking over her mug.

"I said it was fine since Alexis is away and that I could, uh, write anywhere. So I guess I'd better get writing, huh?" He stops. "Is that okay with you? If I stay since your Dad is busy?"

"Yeah. It is. Sure. Of course. And I have to step up my PT today, add some stuff. So I might be a little grouchy. Good thing if you write and ignore me."

As if. "Right." He clears his throat. "Guess we both better get cracking then."

"Guess so. Thanks again for this amazing breakfast, Rick."

"My pleasure." Amazing? This breakfast was way beyond amazing. It was inspirational. "I'm gonna do the dishes and then write out on the porch."

She goes to her room to do her morning PT, and he goes to the porch to write, just as he'd said he would. He opens his laptop and begins to type. What he produces is an extended scene that he'll never, ever send to Gina or anyone else. It makes page 105 look like a Disney cartoon for suitable for kindergarteners. It's almost enough to make him blush.

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks again, everyone!


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She wasn't kidding. The stepped-up PT she did today—and she insisted on going it alone—has left her short-tempered. She snaps at him over nothing, apologizes, and a minute later gets mad about something else. He knows that it's the pain talking, but it's tough for him to take and even tougher for him to realize just how hard a road she's on, has been on for almost a month.

He's worried that she'll over-medicate again, so even though she's fighting him he maintains his resolve. He's the keeper of her prescriptions, at least for the present. They're in the kitchen, and she's hanging on to the counter as if it were a mooring in a storm. Her cheeks are flaming, making the pallor underneath all the more unsettling.

"I'm not five years old, Castle."

"I know you're not. You're six times that, plus a year to grow on."

Humor, or his attempt at it, does not temper her mood.

"You have no right to keep my meds away from me."

"I do if you're going to be careless about administering them."

"I'm not careless. I'm very careful."

"Really? Because I have evidence to the contrary, and you love evidence."

"I took too many because I didn't know how many to take, all right? Because my father treated me like a helpless child and doled the stuff out to me. Never let me get my hands on the bottle, so when I was alone and in pain such as you will, I hope, never even begin to imagine, I took too much. So sue me."

"Not going to sue you. Don't want to face you in court. What I am going to do is hand you a pill, one pill, and some water. If there's anything that I can do to help, like massage your feet or read to you or make you a chocolate milkshake, I will."

"Give me the goddamn medicine bottle, Castle."

"Say please." He's trying to defuse the situation, but as soon as he says those two words he knows it's a mistake, and he can't take it back. He should have let her anger run its course.

"Say please? Are you kidding me? Please?" She yanks hard on the neck of the oversized shirt she's wearing, pulling it down so far below her collarbone that most of the dressing on the wound in the center of her chest is exposed. "You want to see this?"

He backs off a step, involuntarily, aware of his own blood leaving his face. "No, I don't."

"Too bad, because I'm going to show it to you. I can't wear a bra because it's still too uncomfortable. At least I save myself the torture of putting it on and taking it off, because the stretching that requires is pretty awful."

She stops to get more breath. Witnessing this is such agony that he wishes he could put his fingers in his ears. Man up, he tells himself, that's about a thousandth of the pain that she's living with right now. And then she starts to peel away the large gauze pad. Very slowly, using one fingernail. "Don't. Please don't, Kate." He's imploring, not simply asking.

"You can say please all day, I'm still showing you this, Castle. So you get it."

He's not sure which is worse, the reality or what he had imagined, because seeing the wound wipes his memory clean. No, not completely clean: one memory has taken over his consciousness. She's lying in the cemetery, and blood is coming through her dress blues. Red blood that he thinks must be blue. She is bleeding blue for her dead captain. Their friend who is about to be lowered into the ground when a bullet lowers her to the same ground.

"My ribs were cracked. Did you know that? There's nothing to do about it except let them heal, but they still ache some of the time. I hope to God I don't cough, because when I do it feels as if my rib cage is exploding." She presses the bandage back into place and releases the neck of her shirt, but she's not through with him yet. Now she pulls up the hem, baring half her side, from just below her breast to her waist. "This is where they sliced me open, Castle. Hurts like a son of a bitch if I move too quickly, or twist too hard. I'll spare you what's underneath the bandage." She drops the hem and looks down. This has taken everything out of her, and she's wobbly.

He's at a loss. He, a 40-year-old man with considerable experience with women and even more with words, doesn't know what to do. Here he stands, mute and motionless on the linoleum kitchen floor of a cabin in the woods, within arm's reach of the woman he loves more than he had ever thought possible. What the hell is wrong with him?

It's only because he, too, has lowered his eyes that he sees what happens next. A tear lands on the floor between them, spreading out in a way that reminds him of the blood when it seeped through her jacket. And then another one falls, landing slightly to the left of the first so that it partially overlaps it before moving outward in a different pattern. _She's crying_.

He takes two steps forward and wraps her in his arms, holding her as tightly but gently as he possibly can. He doesn't ask permission and he's not crossing a line. He's just trying to be whatever she needs right now, whatever that is. The world has been so rough on her, and he wants to be the opposite. "I'm sorry that everything hurts so much," he whispers. "I'm sorry that I didn't understand how hard everything is."

She's crying quietly, but she's still holding herself stiffly and he wishes that she'd relax. Gradually she does, but it's a long time before she says anything, and his arms are still wrapped around her. "It's the stakes."

He has no idea what she means. Stakes or steaks? Neither one makes any sense, so he'll just wait for her to elaborate.

"They're so much higher now."

Ah, stakes. At least he knows which one she means, even if he's still on the dark side of the moon. "Why's that?"

"Because it's not just me anymore," she says into his shirt. "Now there's you."

He's a romantic, a full-blown romantic, but he has always dismissed the notion that something can make your heart sing. Until the moment she says "now there's you." Now there's him? Him! A fully-staged Mozart opera magically appears in his left ventricle. Ella Fitzgerald begins warming up in the right atrium. Elvis. Willie Nelson. Sinatra. Adele. Prince. Lou Reed. Aretha. They're all in there.

Why is she looking at him like that, as if she's confused? Can't she hear his heart singing?

"Castle? You okay?"

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"Yes. I am so very much okay. I am. I am. There's not just you, there's me. That's us, right? Oh, and you need your pill. Here." He thrusts the little yellow container at her.

"You keep it," she says, pushing it back to him. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about." He takes one pill out, presses it into her hand, and reaches for the glass of water that's right next to him. "Take this." He wishes she could hear his heart. Right now Adele is singing "One and Only," full tilt, with Lou Reed backing her up.

She swallows the pill, drains the glass, lies down on the sofa, and falls asleep instantly. He's grateful, because he's longing to push her, but he knows he can't. At least while she's sleeping he can resist temptation. "Hell of a morning," he whispers, watching her. "Turned out well though, didn't it? Oh, what a beautiful morning. Want to sing that one, Ella?"

Kate sleeps a long time. He considers waking her, wondering if a two-hour nap will make it hard for her to fall asleep tonight, but lets her alone. He's rewarding/punishing himself with some more Dostoevsky, and mulling over what to serve for lunch. There's some homemade gazpacho in the fridge and he'll make grilled cheese sandwiches to go with it. Grown-up comfort food.

He's feeling a little antsy and really doesn't want her to wake up and find him staring. Maybe there's something that needs doing. Yes! The laundry. When he'd wadded up his red tee shirt earlier he'd noticed that the hamper in the bathroom was almost full. Doing the laundry is one of his favorite tasks, and at home he seldom leaves it for the housekeeper. It's easy and it's satisfying and it smells good. It appeals to his sense of order.

He carries the hamper to the tiny room off the kitchen—it must have been the pantry at one time, he thinks—that's just big enough for a washer, a dryer and a small cabinet that holds detergent, stain remover, bleach, fabric softener, and clothes pins. He can hang things out to dry! He sorts everything into two piles, lights and darks, and checks to see what needs a squirt of Shout. His coffee-stained shirt, for one. His jeans are plenty grubby, too. Why are there so many towels? Oh, because she uses a fresh one every day for PT. Down to nothing but his tee shirt and shorts—a plain-vanilla pair of Jockeys, courtesy of Harry Meets Sally—he's starting the first load when he hears her bare feet behind him.

"What are you doing?"

"The laundry. There was a lot, so I thought I'd get it out of the way."

"You can't wash my clothes, Castle," she says. She sounds desperate, maybe even borderline panicky.

"Sure I can."

"But my underwear is in there."

"So?"

"It's my _underwear_."

"Nothing I haven't seen before. I don't mean on you. I mean that I wash Alexis's. And worse, I sometimes wash my mother's. Makes you understand why underwear is sometimes referred to as unmentionables. Believe me, there's absolutely nothing I haven't seen."

She looks unconvinced.

"Hey, Kate, this is your golden opportunity. You can make fun of my underwear. Go on, give it your best shot."

Thank God, he's made her laugh. "Doesn't seem fair, Castle. There's such a limited selection at Harry Meets Sally. If I made fun of you now I'd just be shooting fish in a barrel."

"Only if I were wearing tighty-whities."

She laughs so hard that she coughs, which makes her press her hand to her chest and curl over. "Shit."

"Oh, God, I made you cough. I'm sorry, I'm sorry again, it must be excruciating." He's afraid to touch her, but he stands by, waiting. She's beginning to straighten up. Thank you, thank you, thank you. No damage.

She's wincing and smiling at the same time. "It is. Was. Excruciating. Little better now. But you know what? Totally worth it."

He's so relieved he wants to kiss her. Well, he wants to kiss her all the time, but especially now. Instead he puts on a sober expression. "Detective Beckett?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know what we just did?"

"No, Mister Castle, what?"

"We just crossed a line?"

"Really? And what line would that be?"

"The clothes line."

TBC

 **A/N** Special thanks to all the guest reviewers to whom I can't respond personally.


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

It's late morning, and they're drinking coffee when Castle makes an idle comment about Charles Dickens. For no apparent reason other than hearing the author's name, Kate develops an insatiable itch to re-read _A Tale of Two Cities_.

"Let's go get it from the library," he says enthusiastically, jumping up and getting his car keys.

She shakes her head. "Have to stay here and do my PT."

"Oh, right. I'll wait for you. We'll do it when you've finished."

"No, no, go," she says, giving him a little push. "I can tell you need a Susanna Cooper fix. Your eyes are sort of glazed. You'll start twitching in a minute."

"I think you're describing doughnut withdrawal, Kate."

"Same symptoms, Castle. Get going."

"When he's left the driveway, she helps herself to another cup of coffee. She's relieved to get him out of the house, not because she doesn't want him here, but because she doesn't want him around while she's doing her therapy. Ever since her meltdown four days ago, he's been hovering just outside her door like a helicopter parent when she's working on her exercises. He's out of sight, but she knows he's there. He's doing it with the kindest heart, but it drives her crazy. She wants to prove to herself that she can do this one thing on her own: the physical part, getting her physical strength back. Her emotional well-being? For her progress there she gives the credit to Castle. All of it. Every bit.

The interesting this is that that horrible morning—when she hurt all over, screamed at him, and made him look at her wounds—had been a turning point. Since then her PT hurts less even though she's doing more. Her mobility has improved measurably. And Castle gets it, really gets it. She lets herself ruminate on that for a while, and it's so nice that she forgets all about her she finds that it has gone cold she dumps the remains in the sink, rinses out her mug, and heads for her room.

A few minutes into her workout she starts going over the "lines" they've crossed over the past few days. There was the headline, in which they made up the most outrageous newspaper headlines they could; his were cleverer, hers were more bloodthirsty. He claimed that she had an unfair advantage because of her years of police work; she claimed that he had one because of his years as a writer. It was a draw. That was followed by the free-throw line, in which they competed in tossing wadded up pieces of newspaper, socks, and pennies into the wastebasket. The next day they'd participated in the laugh line, in which they told terrible jokes. They crossed the line when they were laughing so hard that they collapsed against each other and he pulled her onto his lap. But only for a moment. There are lines and there are lines, after all. She may be better, but she's not fully healed.

During the toughest part of her routine, she lets her mind wander over yesterday's line, which is her favorite of the last four:

"I can't believe this works," Castle says as he stares at the old black phone in the kitchen.

"Still have rotary service up here. Quite a few rural areas do."

He picks it up and flips it over. Of course. She half expects him to take apart and not be able to put it back together. "This can't be the original one, can it? That came with the house?"

"No, this place was built in the Twenties. The original was probably one of those huge wooden wall-mounted ones like they had on _The Waltons_."

He drops the remarkably heavy phone back on the counter, and looks at her. "You're too young to have watched that show. That was my childhood."

"Ever hear of reruns Castle? I loved that show when I was a kid."

That's the perfect segue for him to introduce "the party line."* He wants to know if they used to have one here, and she tells him yes, but it had gone by the time she was a toddler.

"How cool must that have been? Your parents could have overheard someone ordering a hit!"

"More like ordering groceries, Castle."

"Just saying."

He then launches into an elaborate plot for a local murder that's foiled by two young attorneys who share the party line with another couple. When he's finished with that, he challenges her to come up with embarrassing things you might be caught saying on a party line. t turns out they both excel at it. She could be a lot more explicit, but thinks better of it. She's pretty sure he does, too: they're still keeping some limits.

She'd thought about that off and on all day. When she'd gotten into bed last night she'd shouted, "Night, John-Boy!"

From the living room he'd answered, "Night, Elizabeth!"

No way could she have let that slide. She'd gotten up and gone out to talk to him. "How did you know Elizabeth was my favorite Walton girl?"

"Easy guess, Kate," he'd said, looking up from his laptop. "She was adorable. And a total book worm, just like you. Now go back to bed. You need your ten hours' sleep."

"Such a big brother, geez."

She'd reluctantly returned to her room, thinking decidedly unsisterly thoughts about him, and dreaming them, too. Explicitly. Sexplicitly.

The screen door slams just as she's putting on a clean shirt and shorts. When she arrives in the kitchen she sees some brown bags on the table. "What's all this, Castle? I thought you were just going to commune with Susanna and get my book."

"I did get your book, smarty pants," he says, holding up a well-worn copy of _A Tale of Two Cities_. "But I also took the opportunity of expanding my summer wardrobe in the local haberdashery. A three-pack of black Jockeys, two pairs of cargo shorts—one blue, one beige—and two more tee shirts. One's yellow and one's purple."

"Wow, daring. Purple. Cutting-edge."

"Apparently the men in Williams don't like cutting-edge. Lack my fine fashion sense. No one's buying purple, so I got that one for half-price. I saved five bucks."

"I hope you're going to invest it wisely, Castle. Put it in a blue-chip stock. Purple-chip stock, if there is such a thing."

"I invested it in something far better, as you'll soon see. And taste." He picks up one of the bags, unfolds the top, and inhales deeply. "Ah, an excellent vintage. Grown on the dappled slopes of Mount Scrumptious."

"Mount Scrumptious? Where is that exactly? I must have been absent from geography class that day."

"You've never heard of Mount Scrumptious?" He slaps an open palm against his chest. "I find that hard to believe in one who prides herself on local knowledge. Please take a seat in my classroom, which is located on the other side of that door."

"An outdoor classroom, Professor? How lovely." She steps out on to the porch and sits in one of the rocking chairs. She can hear some rustling, and the clink of china.

Castle, carrying a tray with two glasses of milk and a plate of something that she can't see properly, pushes the door open with his butt. "Here we are," he says, placing the tray on the small table between them.

"Doughnuts?"

"Of course doughnuts. We were just talking about them this morning. I admit it, I was suffering from doughnut withdrawal. I didn't want you, or worse, Sergeant Nelson, to find me sweating in some filthy back alley in Williams—"

"Don't think there are any back alleys in Williams."

"Excuse me, but you don't even know about Mount Scrumptious, so hear me out. I admit that I've always liked doughnuts, but three years of hanging out in a police station has made me something of—" he looks around to make sure that there's no one else there, and lowers his voice to a husky whisper. "An addict. I asked the redoubtable Susanna if she knew where I could get a doughnut fix, and she gave me directions to a new bakery on Goshen Street."

"There's a bakery there?"

"Yes. Run by two recently relocated older Southern ladies. It's called Land o Goshen."

"You're kidding."

"I never kid about doughnuts, Beckett." He picks up the plate, which holds two honey-dipped and two cinnamons. "When I walked in there I almost passed out: the smell was that amazing. Better than any wine bouquet I've ever tried. There was a little bowl with bits from different doughnuts, so I could sample. And you know what? They taste even better than they smell. I said to Luanne, 'These must have been grown on Mount Scrumptious'."

"Who's Luanne?"

"One of the ladies."

"Who's the other one?"

"Am I going to get to finish this story?"

"Just curious. Like you."

"Billie Sue. They're sisters. Anyway, I said the doughnuts must have been grown on Mount Scrumptious and she said, 'Yes, indeed. Right out back of here, Mount Scrumptious. And we get all our ingredients from Yummy Valley'."

She drops her head into her hands. "Castle," she says, looking at the floor.

"Yes?"

"Give me a doughnut right now or I will strangle you."

"I think hunger has impeded your manners, but okay. Which kind do you want?"

She extends her arm, cupped palm up. "Don't care."

He takes an unconscionable amount of time to decide, eventually giving her a cinnamon one. She takes an enormous bite, and another, and to his astonishment, another. And then? Then she makes a sound that he thought he'd never hear again, though he'd hoped that maybe in bed—. Maybe when she was in bed with him. In the most private part of his brain he refers to the sound as The Shampoo Moan, the noise she made when he was washing her hair and massaging her scalp. He's both ecstatic and stunned. A cinnamon doughnut as aphrodisiac? Who knew?

"Oh, my God," she says, looking a little bleary. "We have to move."

What? Move? "Where?"

"Mount Scrumptious."

"We! She'd said we. We, not I. He is a happy, happy man, but when she stands up and walks towards the door, he's surprised. "Kate? Don't you want the rest of your doughnut?"

"I have to make a phone call."

He sees her go in the direction of her room rather than the kitchen, so he knows she's not using the landline, and he hears her door click shut. It's something private, then. Something personal that she doesn't want him to know about. The joy he'd been feeling departs faster than air leaves a broken balloon.

Ten minutes later she emerges, all smiles. "Where did you put my book, Castle?"

Huh? "Oh, right there. Next to the fridge," he replies, pointing to the bench.

"Thanks," she says, before retrieving _A Tale of Two Cities_ , settling down on the sofa, running her hand across the dust jacket and cracking open the cover.

She's acting as though nothing had happened. Had he missed something? Had he been so transfixed by The Shampoo Moan that he'd failed to register an important moment? Has his own personal space-time continuum developed a black hole that just sucked up the last half hour? Is that even possible? He really should have paid more attention in physics class in high school, or at least to _The Big Bang Theory_ , which he has been watching religiously for four years.

"Wow," she says from the sofa.

Wow?

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness."

"Right."

"Isn't that incredible?"

"Yeah. One of the greatest openers in the history of literature."

"I meant that it's so appropriate. Right on the money, you know? To what we've been going through, the worst, the best, the foolishness, the wisdom."

"Yeah." He can't come up with anything better.

She tilts her head back so she can look at him. "Thanks, Castle."

For what, he has no clue, so he smiles and says, "You're welcome."

She goes back to reading, and he returns to his muddled state. He's still there when she sits up, much later. "Let's have lunch."

"Oh, hey, sorry. I didn't realize how late it is. I'll make something."

"No, let's do it together," she says, walking by him and trailing the tip of a finger over the top of his ear. "Let's just make sandwiches and eat them outside on the grass."

And so they do. When he's finished, he lies down on his back. "See that, Kate?"

"See what?"

"Lie down."

"Okay."

"That cloud. It looks like the Empire State Building."

"Does not."

"Does too. There's even see a little blob at the top that looks like King Kong."

"The blob makes it looks like the top of the Met Life Tower. It's an architectural detail, not some big ape."

"King Kong wasn't actually an ape, he was apelike, Beckett."

"Fine. Anyway, the cloud to the left? Kind of reminds me of the Flatiron Building."

"No, it's just flat, like the UN.""No! It looks triangular, like the Flatiron."

He rolls onto his side, pulls up a blade of grass and touches it to her hand. "You know what we're doing?"

""Arguing about clouds?"

"No. We're discussing the skyline. The New York City skyline, as rendered in the sky."

"Oh."

"We crossed the skyline."

She reacts by rolling onto her side, so she's facing him. "Speaking of the skyline, Castle, can you drive me into the city day after tomorrow?"

His heart sinks. She doesn't want to stay up here anymore with him? "You want to go home?" He tries to sound casual.

"No, no. Just for a couple of hours. And then come back here.

Singers begin warming up in his heart again.

"I need to talk to a doctor."

And they stop.

*A party line was a telephone line that was shared by two or more households; each had its own number and an individual ring so you knew if an incoming call was yours. When you wanted to make a call you had to check to see if the line was free. If you heard a dial tone, it was; if someone else was using the line, you'd hear the conversation when you picked up the receiver. There was all sorts of etiquette involved! Party lines span style="color: #000000;"were widespread in rural America for decades, though most had disappeared by 2000.

 **A/N** Another terrible act, another desolate day in human history. Sending love to all, especially those of you in France.


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She needs to talk to a doctor? Why? And why doesn't she go to one in Williams? Did she hurt herself by overdoing the PT? She seems to be in less pain, but she's hiding something. If she wants to go all the way into the city it's serious. Wait, the phone call. She was talking to her doctor. Or Lanie? No. The doctor. She made an appointment with a doctor who's going to see her in two days. That's incredible. Unless your heart has stopped or you have a knife sticking out of your skull it takes weeks to get an appointment with a doctor in Manhattan. Something must be very, very wrong.

Then why is she smiling? Apart from the doughnut. Which, by the way, she didn't finish. And the way she was going after it? She left it on her plate: there's definitely something going on.

He squeezes his eyes shut so hard that it hurts. Oh, God. It all makes sense now. Why she's smiling, but why she doesn't want to see a local doctor in this little town where gossip is served at every meal. She's pregnant. That son of a bitch Davidson got her pregnant and now he's off saving lives on some other planet or anyway an inaccessible country at least 10,000 miles away instead of being here getting ready for the birth of his own kid. Josh is never around. He'll be a terrible father. Kate said she was through with him, that the guy is a total jerk, but that was before she knew she was pregnant. What if? He can't bear the idea. What if the doctor she just called wasn't her own doctor but JOSH DAVIDSON? What if they're getting back together? The guy is probably already kayaking up some filthy river to get to an airport so he can go to the doctor with Kate.

"Castle! Castle?"

His head whips around. Kate isn't lying on her side any more, she's sitting up, and she's looking at him as if he's lost his mind. Lost that instead of his heart, which is in the process of shriveling to nothing, leaving a useless resonance chamber in the middle of his chest. "Yes?"

"Josh?"

How does she know he's thinking about that bastard? Does she think he was eavesdropping and heard her talking to him? "I wasn't listening in on your call, I promise. I just figured it out. It's—geez. I guess, I mean, congratulations."

"Have you been taking my painkillers or something?"

"What? No. Why would I do that? Oh, and you have to stop taking them, as of today. I'm sure they're not good for you."

"Well, then your new girlfriends, Luanne and Billie Sue, must have slipped something into your doughnut, because you're making no sense at all. You just yelled 'Josh,' out of the blue."

"I did?" He'd said that out loud? That's it. He has to end this torture. Time to rip off the Band-Aid. That's something she really knows about, ripping off a bandage. The way she had the other day to show him the wounds that Josh had tended. "Kate, it's okay. I know. I'm not happy, and that's not right—I mean, I am truly happy for _you_. You'll be a wonderful mother." He starts to push himself up and she pulls him back down. God, that woman is strong.

"What the hell are you talking about? Start with Josh, please, loath as I am to hear his name."

"You are?"

"Yes, I am." She shudders. "You know that."

"Is it because he doesn't want the baby? The responsibility? Because if that's what it is I'll help you every step. I'll take care of it as if it were mine, I promise. I mean, if you'd let me. And I'd never let him get within fifty blocks of the baby. I have incredible lawyers. They could get a restraining order you wouldn't believe."

Saucer-eyed would not be an adequate description: her eyes are like dinner plates, if dinner plates were greeny-brown with amber flecks. Maybe he could find a ceramist who could make some.

"Baby? You think I'm pregnant?"

He shrugs. Mister Nonchalance. "Well, yeah."

"Why on earth would you think that?"

"Why on earth not? It's the only explanation that made sense after you ran from the room when you were eating a doughnut saying you had to make a phone call and you went to your room so obviously you didn't want me hearing the conversation and ten minutes later you come out all smiles like the doughnut moment never happened and you lie down and read your best-of-times book and I'm beginning to wonder now if the foolishness part is describing me and then you read more and don't say anything until all of a sudden you say let's have lunch on the grass and we do and I thought we were having a great time with the skyline and then you ask me to drive you into New York in two days so you can see a doctor so it was pretty easy to figure out why, once I looked at all the clues."

She shoves him on the shoulder so hard he falls over.

"Castle, you doofus. I'm not pregnant. I'm not having a baby." She pulls up the hem of her tee shirt and pulls down her yoga pants just enough to expose a large patch of skin on a belly so flat you could use it as a level. "Does this look like the stomach of a pregnant woman?"

It's hard for him to look, or not to look. "Well, you know, it's early still."

And suddenly there she is, folded against him, all but nose-to-nose with him. "Castle, listen to me. Josh and I were pretty much done a week after the bomb thing. We didn't officially break up, but we weren't together, either. Then I got shot and he was sure that I'd coming running back to him, if I ever get strong enough to run again. And then I told him it was over. Finished, finito, fini. I haven't had sex in three and a half months."

Five hundred choristers just reinflated his heart with the "Hallelujah Chorus."

"Kate."

"Mmm?"

"I really want to kiss you. Just on the lips, I promise."

She knows she shouldn't say it while she's in the middle of saying it, but her mouth is three seconds ahead of her brain. No contest. "By lips I assume you mean the ones above my neck?"

They laugh even harder than Castle and Susanna had over "I'll have what she's having."

"We really have to toe the line," she says, once she's able to speak.

"Does that mean I can kiss your toes?"

"Does that mean you're a foot fetishist?"

"It does not. So can I kiss you on the lips that are right here tantalizingly close to mine?"

"Yes."

He does, and she kisses him back, but they both stop before they're breathless and likely to get even more so. "This is worse than being fourteen," he says.

"It is? Were the girls you knew at that age better kissers than I am?"

"Of course not. But when I was fourteen I couldn't even imagine what I know now."

"You got that right, Castle." She giggles, and with less effort than she had expected gets to her feet without any assistance. Except then she looks down and he's still lying on his back with his azure eyes locked on her and she wonders if she has the strength to resist dropping right down on top of him. "I need coffee," she says, because she can't say what she really means, which is, "I need a drink," or, more to the point, "I need you." And she goes inside and with only slightly shaky hands makes a pot of coffee.

"Since you're not pregnant," he says, having sneaked in and stopped about a foot behind her.

"Jesus, Castle, you nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry, sorry. It's just that if you're not pregnant why do you have to go to the doctor? Since I'm taking you, I though it would be all right to ask."

Her heart rate is still way higher than it should be. She puts off answering by fixing their two coffees, very deliberately, but eventually has to hand him his mug. "You're not actually taking me to the doctor, you're taking me to New York, which I appreciate. But I'll go to the doctor by myself and I thought while I was there you'd probably want to go to the loft and get all your hair stuff and more shoes and whatever you've been missing while you were here. And don't say 'hair stuff?' like you don't crave it daily. And if I haven't said so before, I really admire that you haven't companied once about not having things you're used to like your 200-jet shower."

"Twenty-seven jet."

"Whatever."

"You're avoiding my question, you know. Which not only makes me more inquisitive but also makes me worry."

"You don't have to worry," she says softly.

"I don't have to worry? You were shot. You died. You're back, but you're still so thin and—. And you know, not as strong as I'm used to."

"You think I'm vulnerable."

"Yes."

"And fragile."

"Yes."

"I'm a lot better than I was. I'm so much stronger."

"I know."

She sighs, sets her mug on the counter and looks out the window for a time before she picks up the conversation again. "You were right about one thing in your wacko speech about my being pregnant. One of the reasons I don't want to see a doctor in Williams is because everyone knows me, and despite the Hippocratic Oath there are eyes and ears all over, and pretty soon at least some of what I talked to the doctor about would be on the menu at the diner and your beloved Land o Goshen." She stops for more of the liquid courage of Jamaican Blue, which is now cut with only a third decaf. "I need to go to my own doctor. Talk to her. For her expertise and for my peace of mind. I haven't seen her since I got out of the hospital. Do you understand? So don't worry. Nothing to worry about."

"I do understand. And I apologize for being nosy."

"You? Oh, Castle, I have to remember this moment."

"Speaking of remembering this moment, the world's biggest bee is buzzing around the screen. Look at it. I could be in a horror movie about mutant insects."

Dipping her head a fraction, she takes a close look. "You're right, it's huge. You know what we should do? Make a beeline for those doughnuts. Before the flying predator chews its way through the screen and carries a honey-glazed off in its six hairy legs."

Castle dashes to the table, grabs the paper bag to which he'd returned the doughnuts earlier in the afternoon, and clutches it to his chest. "Would a bee even want these doughnuts? The honey-dipped ones, isn't that sort of cannibalistic?"

She can't dash, but she makes it to the table and sits down. "May I have one, then, please? Spare the bee from doing something awful."

"Of course. And I'll join you." He's primed and ready for her to make that sound again, The Shampoo Moan. She does not disappoint. It could be even more erotic than the moan she made over the cinnamon doughnut, or it could be that his reaction to her reaction is heightened by the kiss they'd had and his relief that she's not pregnant. He wishes that he'd had the wits to turn on his phone and tape her. Covertly.

"You really got four of these doughnuts for only five dollars?"

"I know, they should sell for for fifty."

"Gotta say, that was some beeline you made for the bag, buster."

"Triple alliteration, nice."

"I bet we could come up with a ton of words beginning with B, right in this room."

"You're on, Beckett. There's a B."

"Bag."

"Brown bag."

"Big brown bag, Castle. Three-pointer."

He scans the room. "Baseboard. That should be worth two."

She licks the honey glaze from the side of her thumb, looks right at him, and smiles broadly. All her teeth are showing, and the tip of her tongue. "Balls."

 **A/N** Many thanks to the ever-resourceful mobazan27 for the beeline prompt. Off to NYC in the next chapter.


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

It's pouring the day before they go to the city, and they're both buried in books. One of the things that Kate enjoys most about her enforced period of rest is reading. What she likes even more is talking with Castle about it. She's always been a bookworm, but a consuming job and a largely solitary private life had not only eaten into her reading time but restricted her ability to discuss books with someone.

It's almost one o'clock when she finishes _A Tale of Two Cities_. Ordinarily she'd be itching to talk with Castle about it, but she's getting itchy in other ways now. "Hey, Castle. You want to make that lava cake you promised me last week?"

"You bet," he says, standing up and stretching. "Want to help?"

"No. I wanna watch."

"Ah, a watcher, are you?"

"Under the right circumstances."

"Geez, Beckett, I haven't even turned the oven on yet and it's already heating up in here."

He's all but certain that Kate has a thing for his arms, specifically his muscles. He's seen her sneaking a peek when she thinks he's not looking—except that when it comes to her he's always looking; he's just gotten better at hiding it. She's on a stool now and he's standing opposite her, beating eggs and egg yolks into the chocolate batter. Though he'd found a hand-held electric mixer in a cabinet, he's deliberately using a whisk; his muscles are rippling in ways they wouldn't otherwise, and he tilts the bowl forward so that his forearms are angled steeply towards her.

"Watch out, your shirt," she says, pointing to the center of his chest. He'd opted for his yellow tee this morning to brighten up the gloomy day, but it's a bad choice for someone who's working with melted chocolate. There are flecks of it all over. The good news: it will come out in the wash. The better news: he can take his shirt off on the premise that he must work on the stains before they set in. The best news: he knows she'll love it.

"Hope you don't mind, Kate," he says, pulling the jersey over his head and tossing it in the sink. "Sorry to be half naked in the kitchen, but I've got to put some club soda on these spots."

"Right," she squeaks, another sound he hadn't known she had in her.

"Good thing we're going into the city tomorrow," he says, looking over his shoulder and then turning back to pour soda on the shirt. "I won't have to keep washing the same things, or worry about running out of clothes."

"Right," she squeaks again, shoving her trembling hands underneath the counter, but not before The Shirtless Chef notices.

TSC puts the six ramekins in the oven, sets the timer on his phone, and smiles. "These will be ready in fourteen minutes."

Her eyes are slewing between his pectoralis major and the oven door. "Right."

Three times "right." That's a record. He tidies up and is about to wash the bowl when he says, "Oh! Can't believe I forgot. Would you like to lick this?"

"Huh?"

"The chocolate that's left over. The little gooey smears I couldn't quite get off with a spatula."

Her mouth opens a fraction. Did he just say "get off with a spatula"? Overcome by a chocolatey smell, she suddenly realizes that Castle is offering her the batter bowl.

"Right."

Four!

"Still warm, Kate, but not too hot to lick. Just the way I like it."

"Me, uh, me. Same here. Too. Also."

Gotcha! He thinks as he puts the bowl down in front of her. "Help yourself," he says innocently. "Give it your best lick."

Calling on acting skills that she had previously restricted to the interrogation room, she feigns a coughing attack. "Water, please," she pseudo gasps. While he gets her something to drink she admires his back and tries to bring herself under control. God, she really, really needs to get better. Soon. When he gives her the water she drains the glass, then examines the bowl as if it were a priceless artifact before drawing the tip of her index finger across the bottom. "Yum. This is really good."

"Not half as good as the finished product, which will be ready in—three, two, one, now." Protecting his hands with potholders, he slides the ramekins from the oven and puts them on a cooling rack. "We have to eat these almost right away, okay?"

"No argument here, Castle."

He tips two of them out onto small plates and adds a scoop of vanilla ice cream to each. "For you," he says, pushing a plate and a fork across the table to her.

She's taking her third small bite from around the cakey rim when she hears his fork drop.

"No, no, no! You're eating it all wrong." He sounds horrified. "You can't nibble at the outside like that. You have to—" he leans over and pokes his fork into the middle of her cake. "You have to spear it, Kate. Spear it. So the hot liquid that's been building up in there gushes out all around the fork, see?"

She can hardly help seeing: it's a little chocolate stream, half oozing, half spilling from the cake. She's hypnotized.

"Isn't that fantastic, Kate? It's _squirting_."

Holy God, she's clenching her thighs so tightly she could burst a blood vessel. She can feel her face redden, and not from the heat that he'd released with his, his spear. "I didn't know cake could do that, Castle."

"You'd be amazed at what I can get my desserts to do."

Was that a wink? Did he just wink at her? "Hope I live long enough to find out," she mumbles.

"What's that?"

"Just said this was amazing enough for a lifetime."

"You ain't tasted nothin' yet. Wait 'til you have my kumquat mousse."

When she coughs this time, she's not faking it. And then she needs to change the course of the conversation. Immediately. "I meant to say, yesterday. That was really nice, your offering to get me a restraining order against Josh."

"I'm just glad you don't need it, after all."

"Still might. Just to protect myself from his raging ego. You know, in case I ever bump into him. Or it."

Castle lifts his head to look out the window, where rain is following hard on rain. "This weather is a drag. I think we should play a game."

A game? Isn't that what they've been doing? Playing an undeclared game of highly-charged cat and mouse? "We have some from when I was a kid. Clue, Monopoly. Oh, and Scrabble and Boggle. How about one of those?"

"I was thinking more like geography. You like that, right?"

"A geography game? We don't have one, sorry."

"Our own game. Of borders. We'll be crossing borderlines."

Oh, you bet we will, Castle. "How's it work?"

"I just invented it, but the rules are pretty simple. One person names a state or a country and the other has to come up with everything that shares a border with it. So if I say New York, the answer is New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont."

"And Canada."

"That's not a state."

"No, but last time I looked it was a country, so I should get a bonus."

Borderlines proves to be ruthless, right from the start (Colorado and Kazakhstan), because both players are wildly competitive. She's better on the countries, he wins on the states. "Wait till you have a kid in third grade, you'll know everything about every state," he says. "I have a real weakness for the state animals."

"There are state animals?"

"Of course. Some states have a bunch." He ticks them off: "Land mammal, sea mammal, wildlife animal, domestic mammal. Texas, Oklahoma, and Virginia have a state bat."

"A bat? Ewww. No, thanks. I'll just stick with dogs."

"You're in luck. There are twelve state dogs."

"How do you even know all this stuff, Castle?"

His expression changes in an instant, from half amused to utterly solemn. "I'm a dad, Beckett. I should know this stuff."

It's so unexpected and so touching that she almost weeps. "Alexis is a lucky girl."

"And I'm a lucky man. She doesn't care about any of that anymore, but I do."

"I can tell. How come?"

"Because," he says. "Because I hope that I'll need to know it all again some day."

They're quiet after that, and they both read their books until it's time for a late dinner, without dessert.

It's very early when they leave the next morning. Kate is anxious, not just about seeing her doctor and being on time for her 11:30 appointment, but about being back in the city. The noises. The pace. Everything. He asks her if she'd like to see Lanie or the boys and she says no. "Not even for a quick cup of coffee? Maybe lunch after you're through with Doctor Aronson?"

"No. No. I don't want to do any explaining. Answer all their questions. Or ask any."

"Ask—?"

"Like, 'Do you have anything yet on my shooter?' "

"Oh."

"I just want to be."

"Okay. Just us, then."

"Just us."

Between their early departure and her knowing every back road in four counties, they pull into a parking garage three blocks from her doctor's office with more than an hour to spare. She's more tightly wrapped every minute, and he wants to unwrap her. In more ways than one, but just one for now. He has two ideas: place, and line.

"I love this, Castle," she says, sliding into a booth in a cafe that's tucked into the corner of an old beer hall that's been converted to a home-furnishing store. "It looks like it's been here forever."

"It has, if by forever you mean 1902. In this city, that is forever. I found it about twenty years ago when I got caught in the rain and wanted somewhere to dry off and warm up." He arranges packets of sugar in an earthenware pot. "The coffee was great then and it still is."

He's dunking an almond biscotto, and she's still tense. "Don't you think the subways should have names?"

"What kind of names?"

"Well, like the N and the R, which you ride all the time. They're better than they used to be, but the service is till pretty terrible. So they should be called the Never and the Rarely."

"What about the Q?"

"Oh, that's the worst. Useless. The Quite Infrequent."

"I have a fave."

"A favorite subway line? How can anyone like the subway so much that they have a favorite?"

"It's the D. I've ridden it to four hundred and seventy-nine Yankee games. And it's where my parents met."

"Wait, you know how many times you've taken the subway to a baseball game?"

"Of course."

Of course she does. Duh. "And your parents met there? On the D train? How romantic. Or rodentic."

"It was romantic. My mom was about to go through the turnstile and realized she didn't have a token. She was in a huge rush to get to an exam and she was crazed. My dad was behind her and gave her his. And it turned out he didn't have his wallet so he had to walk thirty blocks. He ran into the room at the last possible moment, all sweaty, and there she was: they were going to the same exam, the LSATs. They were both applying to law school."

"A chivalrous pre-law student. Astonishing. So what would you call the D train?"

She smiles and looks into her cup. "Delightful."

"I don't think anyone else would."

"They don't have to. It's my name for my subway line."

"Who knows, Kate, I might change my mind about that dingy, derelict, decaying, delayed line, and cross over to your point of view."

"I'd like that. It's a good line to cross, Castle." She checks her watch. "Gotta go."

"I'll walk you there," he says, dropping a twenty on the table.

Four minutes later she disappears into the lobby of her doctor's building, but not before she promises to call him when she's ready to leave.

Kate has skimmed half a two-month old issue of _People_ in the waiting room when the nurse tells her to go into the examining room. She doesn't bother to change into the flimsy paper robe because she's not here for that kind of an examination.

"Hi, Kate," the doctor says when she opens the door. "Wow, you look like a different woman than you did when I saw you a month ago."

"I am a different woman."

"Well, you've been through a hell of a lot, but I hope it doesn't change you too much. So, you wanted to talk to me about something urgent?"

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks again for all your cheerfulness.


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"I can see why you said that you're a different woman, Kate." Lydia Aronson is sitting in a chair next to the examination table where Beckett is perched, her bare legs visible beneath the gown that the gynecologist had insisted that she put on fifteen minutes earlier. "You've been my patient since before you graduated from the Academy. I've watched you go through any number of horrific things, but this one was probably the worst, for a lot of reasons. And yet here you are, not only happy but so much more open than I've ever seen you." She pats her lightly on the knee. "It's remarkably brave, what you're doing."

"You think it's brave to fall in love with someone?"

"It's always brave to fall in love with someone, but it's different for you."

"Why?"

"Because the old Kate would have pushed love away. Did push it away. You'd never have exposed yourself or trusted anyone the way you obviously trust Rick. You'd take any risk but that one. You're one of the the bravest people I know—unquestionably the bravest physically—but you've never given yourself permission to fall in love."

Kate looks down at her feet and decides that she needs a pedicure the instant she's out of here. "Pathetic, right, Lydia? When I finally want to give a guy my heart, there's a bullet hole in it."

"Don't be so hard on yourself? Now, to a practical issue, even if romance underlies it." The doctor flips open a folder and looks it over quickly. "No sexual activity for close to four months, but you're still on the pill. Good. Because the last thing you want to do now is get pregnant. You may be almost physically ready for sex, but not for a baby. Not yet."

"Don't worry, I'm not psychologically ready for a baby, either. I'm still trying to cope with the fact that at my advanced age I'm in love for the first time. And last time. I'm terrified. Is that crazy?"

Aronson smiles at her tough-but-tender patient. "I'm not a psychiatrist, but—"

"You've kind of been mine."

"I'm flattered, but one rotation in psychiatry as an intern does not a mental health expert make. Anyway, despite the fact that I'm not a psychiatrist, I'd say you'd be crazy if you _weren't_ a little bit scared. But just a little bit." She holds her left thumb and index finger a quarter of an inch apart. "Just not so much that you don't take the leap, okay?"

"So you're saying I can take the leap in a couple of days?"

"Kate, when I said 'take the leap' I wasn't talking about sex." She chuckles. "Although I know you were. No, I was saying take the leap and let yourself be in love. Listen to an old pro. I've been married for twenty-seven years and never regretted a moment. Except maybe when I was in the middle of giving birth to my ten-pound, three-ounce son, and that moment passed very quickly, even if it didn't seem like it then." She stands up and, holding the folder tight against her white coat, gives Kate a quick hug. "Get dressed, and be happy."

She'd promised to call Castle when she was ready to leave, but she's going to take a quick detour. There's a nail salon directly across the street, and she can see from the corner that it's not wildly busy so she crosses over. Sure enough, they take her, and also assure her that she'll be done in half an hour if two people work simultaneously, one on her feet and the other on her hands. Kate chooses a pink-blush polish. It feels appropriate. Twenty-minutes later she's texting Castle.

"I'm ready if you are."

His response is immediate. "Picked up a few things and am leaving the loft now. Want to get a sandwich where we had coffee earlier? I can be there in 15."

"Yup. I'll save you a seat."

"Thanks. Just make sure it's next to yours."

The booth they'd had before is unoccupied, which she decides is a good omen. "Good omen? Geez, I'm turning into Castle."

"Sorry, I didn't catch that," the waitress says, pen and pad in hand.

Shit, had she said that out loud? "Oh, just that I'd like a half-caff while I'm waiting for my, uh, friend to get here." While she waits she thinks, hard, about everything that Lydia Aronson had said to her. It's a painful truth that she hadn't let herself fall in love before. Better late than never, at least, though it's small consolation. Except, wait, it's a big consolation. An enormous, bigger than jumbo, consolation. Because she hasn't just fallen in love, she's fallen in love with the right man and he is, miraculously, in love with her. Despite everything. And now she's ready to take the leap. Almost.

She's still worried that he won't be able to deal with how scarred she is. Not just the ugly residue of her shooting, but the scars that are so deeply incised that they sometimes feel as if they're new. The ones left by the battle she waged for so long on two fronts: the consuming search for her mother's killer and the desperate struggle to haul her father out from the bottom of a bottle. And she's still struggling with the former.

Except. Except again. Castle has seen some of the worst of her, many times, and yet he's still here. More than ever. It occurs to her that she has to make another kind of leap, a leap of faith in him, that his enormous heart can forgive and understand a great deal. He's not unfamiliar with scars, is he? He has his own share that she can only imagine. No father. Meredith, who apparently had little interest in being his wife or the mother of their child. He has some visible scars, too, like that one on his forehead. Where had that come from? He'll probably invent a hell of a story about that, if she asks him. Oh, and the appendectomy. That had to have left some kind of mark. She wouldn't mind looking for that, finding that. Full-body exploration. And suddenly a racy daydream fills her mind, and she's lost to the world.

Castle see her almost as soon as he comes through the door of the cafe. She's sitting in their booth. Their booth? They found it only a few hours ago. So what? It was love at first booth and now it's theirs. So there. From this angle he can see her only in profile, but he can tell that she's radiant. Her cheeks are pink. She has a half smile, and her only movement is slight: the corner of her mouth twitches. Her lips part slightly, and then close. What's she thinking? She must have gotten good news from Doctor Aronson. Not a podiatrist, he hopes. Or a dermatologist or an ophthalmologist or an audiologist or a lot of other -ists. But an -ist who might have given her significantly good news about her overall health. A cardiologist, maybe? Other than Davidson. Anyone but him.

He's surprised that her detective radar doesn't signal his approach. Even when he stands right next to her she doesn't register his presence. He puts his palm gently on her shoulder and she jumps.

"I can tell that your coffee is cold," he says as he sits down. He knows he needs to keep this light. Not grill her about her appointment. Check-up. Whatever it was. "Can't believe you let that happen. Should I be worried?"

"No. Not worried at all. Nope. Don't worry, be happy." A new and goofy grin transforms her, and he finds that he is instantly and goofily in love with goofy Kate.

"Good. You hungry?"

She nods.

"What would you like?"

"Whatever you're having."

"Really? What if I have tuna with marshmallow fluff?"

Her eyes are gleaming. "You mean a flufferfisher? Sounds delicious."

"Kate? Did your doctor give you something?"

"Like what?"

"Some prescription with unexpected side effects?"

"Yeah. No."

"Which? She gave you a prescription?"

"No, just advice. She gave me advice."

Huh. "And you're doing well? Not prying here. But she's pleased with your progress?"

"She is. Very pleased." She lowers her eyes to the menu for a moment, then looks up at him with a smile he classifies as sultry. "Hey, Castle, how about a cheeseburger with hot fudge? And jalapeños." She tilts her head to the right. "Juicy. And sweet. And spicy."

He's going to choke to death, right here, sitting across the table from the woman of his dreams. He marshals his rapidly dwindling resources. "Even I wouldn't eat that, Kate. Did this doctor of yours do something to your taste buds? Have you checked your tongue lately?"

"No, I haven't, but I distinctly recall your doing that, just a few days ago."

Before he has time to come to his senses, if he can find them at all, she says, "Oops, here's our waitress."

"Are you folks ready to order?"

"We are. I'd like a cheeseburger, please. And another cup of coffee."

"What kind of cheese?"

"Cheddar."

"And for you, sir?"

"The same. Thank you."

"Two cheddar cheeseburgers, two coffees. Be right back."

"Oh, one more thing!" Kate says, adding her sweetest smile. "Could you put whipped cream on his, please? Believe it or not, he likes whipped cream on meat."

That does it. He's going to slide under the table and stay there until he can breathe properly again. Also swallow. And speak. He hits the floor.

"Castle?" There's her face. Sideways. Looking at him while he's sitting on the floor. "Something wrong?"

"Water. Pass me a glass of water. Please."

"Well, of course. All you had to do was ask. Didn't need to get down on the floor and beg."

Her face disappears, and reappears, along with her hand, which is holding a glass. "Here you go."

He's sipping it and contemplating his return to the bench when he sees a pair of New Balance walking shoes. And a pair of legs. He hears the voice that belongs to the legs.

"Is your friend all right?"

"Yes, I think he just dropped something. Went down to get it."

"Here are your cheeseburgers. I put the whipped cream on the side here, in a bowl. Didn't know how much your friend wanted."

"Oh, that's so thoughtful. Thank you."

The shoes, legs, and voice vanish, and he crawls back up.

"Lose something, Castle?" she asks brightly.

"Almost everything. Slide that whipped cream over here."

"Of course."

He scoops up a spoonful of whipped cream and looks at it. Very slowly, he runs the tip of his tongue up the side and hums. He swallows, but makes sure there's a bit on his lip. He licks it off while he looking directly into her eyes. "Oh, my God. Licking whipped cream off skin. It's unbelievable. It's incredibly—" He takes another lick. "Incredibly erotic. Even all by myself, you know?" He flicks an imaginary bit of cream from his lower lip and smiles. "Do you think my lips can be called meat?" His eyes are half closed. "Mmmm."

"Castle?"

"Mmhmm? Sorry, it's just this cream."

"You know what this is?"

"Cream, definitely cream."

"No, it's a line."

"Really? A line? I thought the lines were my jurisdiction."

"Yeah, well, we're sharing jurisdiction, especially when we cross a line."

"And this one is?"

"The Maginot Line."

This demands his full attention. He puts the spoon down and notices that her cheeks now match the color of the ketchup on her cheeseburger. "As in World War Two?"

"Do you know another one?"

"Since you bring it up, no. So how is this the Maginot Line?"

"Because it's where one power is storming the defenses of the other. Barrels right over the line, knocking down everything."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you all!


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"That's not exactly what happened with the Maginot Line, Kate," Castle says smugly.

"I'm not comparing us to the Germans and French. I'm using it metaphorically. You should appreciate that."

"Well, you're taking some poetic license."

"Another thing I'd have thought you'd appreciate. What with your being a writer of best-selling fiction. In which you have been known to take poetic license with police work." She dabs her mouth with a napkin, folds it daintily, and leaves it next to her plate. "Of course, if the image of storming a fortress doesn't appeal to you, or awaken your creative—hmm—impulses, I'll change the subject." She looks to the ceiling. "Let's see. Speaking of best-selling fiction, would you mind if we made a quick stop at Barnes and Noble? I'd like to pick up a copy of the new Patterson, _10th Anniversary_ , before we head back. It sounds like fun."

"Fun? Fun!" Castle is squawking. "One of those Women's Murder Club books? Are you kidding? Beckett, how can you read that drivel? You're Nikki Heat, for God's sake. Nikki leaves Lindsay Boxer in the dust."

"I dunno about that. They've got a lot in common. Both big-city homicide cops. Smart. Tall." She cups her hands and moves them up and down as if she were weighing something. "Lindsay, Nikki; Nikki, Lindsay. Some people probably mix them up."

His squawking gives way to flapping, as his arms begin to flail and his mouth opens and shuts and opens again, but no words emerge.

The waitress walks quickly to the booth. "Did you need something, sir?"

"I think just the check, please," Kate says cheerfully. "He's fine. We were discussing literature and it got a bit heated. Anyway, he did. Oh, and the cheeseburgers were delicious. Just the way we both like them." She looks at Castle, "Right? And you really loved that cream." Turning to the waitress again, she adds. "He made a point of saying how incredible it was. Very rich. Smooth. Delicious aftertaste."

"No dessert for you, then?"

"Gee, maybe we will. What kind of pie do you have?"

She ticks them off on her fingers. "Blueberry, peach, lemon meringue, banana cream, and cherry."

"Oh, he has a thing for cherries, don't you, Castle?"

He's still speechless.

"Cherry pie for you then, sir?"

He can only nod.

"You don't by any chance have humble pie?" Kate asks.

"Uh, no, sorry. Don't remember our ever having that."

"Too bad, I'd have loved to buy him a piece."

"Anything for you?"

"No, thanks. I'll have just have a bite of his cherry."

Once the waitress is out of earshot, Castle leans forward and says, very seriously. "I think that's my line."

"I thought you might. Excuse me, I'm just going to the ladies room. Be right back."

He's not at all sure he could be trusted behind the wheel of his car, even though he's had no alcohol in his system for days. He's even less sure that he could survive watching her behind the wheel for the next two hours.

The arrival of a succulent slice of cherry pie wakens him from his Ferrari daydream.

"I brought two forks. One for your friend."

"That's very thoughtful, thank you."

"You're welcome. Enjoy."

"Oh, we will."

Kate suddenly slides into the booth again. "We will what, Castle?"

"Enjoy this pie."

She leans over to get a good look. "You didn't ask her to heat it up?"

"I think it's plenty hot enough in here already." He breaks off a corner and raises it to his lips.

"Okay. You know what, though? That looks like a really good fork."

Two half-chewed cherries land on his lap, and he's grateful only that he'd had the wits to put a napkin there. He raises his arm and signals to the waitress, who hurries over.

"I hope there's nothing wrong with the pie?"

"Not at all. It's delicious. I've just realized that I'm running late, so if you could put this in a bag for me to take home and bring the check, too, that would be great."

"Certainly," she says, whisking way the plate and taking off in her New Balances.

"Running late, eh? For what?"

"My date with a cold shower. Which I am requiring with increasing frequency."

"Really? Must be the weather."

"Uh huh."

As soon as they're out the door and walking to the parking garage, he takes her elbow. "Not a word."

"What?"

"Not a word. You cannot say a word on the drive home or I might run off the road."

"I'm not supposed to say anything for two hours? Good thing it's me, Castle. You'd never last fifteen minutes. Unless I bound and gagged you, of course."

"See, that's exactly what I mean."

"You're ordering me not to talk?"

"It's a matter of safety."

"Fine. But since we're not in the car yet I'll just say that I loved that cafe even more on this visit. We should go back some time."

"Yes, we should."

"Sexceptionally good cheeseburgers."

"Shut up, Kate."

"Really, Castle."

They turn left at a concrete pillar. "Thank God, there's the car."

"I thought you picked up some things at the loft," she says, peering through the window.

"I did. They're in the trunk." He opens the passenger-side door. "Please do get in."

"All right. It's a pity I'm not allowed to speak now, though." She bends and sits down on the seat, which still has an extra cushion on it, and smiles up at him as he shuts her door. "I was looking forward to paying you compliments on how you handle a stick shift."

He doesn't get in the car. He's not even standing next to it. Where did he go? She leans forward and sees him walking in the direction of an elevator bank. What the hell? She opens the door and gets out. "Castle!" He doesn't stop. "Castle!" He's still walking, and she knows that she's not fast enough to catch up with him. And then she remembers something, so she opens her bag and pulls something out. Two seconds later the shrill of a police whistle is bouncing off every concrete and metal surface in the garage. She takes some pleasure in seeing him jump slightly and cover his ears before he pivots.

"Where are you going, Castle?"

"To the vending machine. To buy two bottles of cold water, which I intend to pour over me." With that he veers off, and soon after he's walking back, soaked halfway to his waist.

This time she takes pleasure in seeing the wet shirt clinging to his chest. "Feeling better?" she asks chirpily.

"Much."

"Good. That's it from me until we get to the cabin. I'm mute, silent, tight-lipped, hushed, unremarking—don't tell me that's not a word because it's good enough for me and I'm on a roll here—mum, voiceless, quiet, clammed up." She returns to the car, closes the door, and fastens her seat belt.

Castle stashes the remaining half bottle of water in the cup holder and turns to her. "You finished?"

She runs her thumb and index finger across her lips, indicating that they're zipped shut.

"Clammed up was a good one," he says, backing out the parking space. "Maybe because I love clams. Crazy about them. Always have been. Let me tell you some of my favorite recipes."

He does. For twenty-three minutes. She's certain because she timed him. Then he segues into a travelogue of where he has eaten clams and with whom. Another fourteen minutes.

"One time Meredith brought a humongous bowl of raw clams to bed. I asked her why and she said, 'Duh, Ricky, clams are an aphrodisiac.' And she was trying to put one in my mouth but it slipped out and landed on the sheets which were already used, if you know what I mean, so I had to get up and change the bed. I thought that would wreck the mood, but after I ate half a dozen I—"

"Mmmreeekhmm!"

That's a sound he's never heard from her, either. Unlike The Shampoo Moan, it's one he hopes she'll never make again. "The deal was that you'd be quiet until we get to the cabin."

She glares, grabs her phone, and sends a text. His phone pings.

"I can't read that while I'm driving, you know. That would be utterly reckless. So, to continue. _Ouch!_ You pinched me, Beckett."

Her hand is hovering just above his thigh, her thumb and index finger poised to pinch again.

"You don't scare me. I can handle pain. So, Meredith—"

"Mmmreeekhmmaggh!"

That one was unimaginably worse, and he winces sharply. "Withdraw your talons and I'll promise not to keep on with that particular story."

She folds her hands primly on her lap and begins to hum.

The tune is familiar but he can't place it. She hums it over and over and over.

"You going to stop?"

Shake of the head and louder humming.

He sees a sign for a gas station a couple of miles ahead, and pretends to ignore her even when he lets up on the pedal and turns in. He clicks on his messages:

"You told me I couldn't TALK. I'm not talking."

"Ah ha," he says. "Hair splitting. And ear-splitting, I may add. Those noises, I mean, not the humming."

She begins texting again. "It's not hair splitting. You specified no talking."

"Good thing you're not a lawyer."

She glares again. Because she knows his tells, she knows that the humming is driving him crazy, probably because he's trying to remember what the song is. He gets a little twitch at the corner of his right eye when he's trying to retrieve a memory. She steps up the humming.

"Okay, okay, okay!" He jams his hands on the sides of his face. "Sing the freaking song. I admit that I didn't specify no singing."

She hums a few more bars before stopping and raising one eyebrow.

"Please, please, please sing the song, Kate."

" _Do the clam, do the clam._

 _Grab your barefoot baby_

 _Turn and tease, hug and squeeze_

 _Dig right in and do the clam_."

When she finishes, she types another text, and assumes a blank expression. His phone pings.

"I hope you're identifying this ditty for me," he says before he calls up the message.

"So tell me, Castle, which would you rather do, the clam or Meredith?"

He laughs so hard he's afraid that he's pulled a stomach muscle. "You win. I lift the embargo, and now I'm going to look up that song." A few moments later he says, "Oh, from an old Elvis movie _Girl Crazy_."

"Surprised you didn't know the song, Castle."

"Never seen that, believe it or not."

She puts her open hand to her chest in the universal sign of amazement. "Really? Now there's a cultural lacuna that need closing."

"You know what?"

She'll wait for him to answer his own question.

"Maybe I'm the one who shouldn't say anything until we get to the cabin."

"Maybe we can both be quiet, then. Just reflect on our own."

"Good idea." He turns the key in the ignition.

"Wait! Aren't you going to get gas?"

"No, don't really need it."

"I think you owe it to Kevin."

"Kevin? Ryan?"

"No, the kid who's been ogling this car since you drove in here. I can see his name on his work shirt. He's drooling on it."

"You're right." He pulls up to the pump and they both watch the teenager try to look uninterested as he approaches the Ferrari.

"C'n I help you?"

"The tank could use some topping up, please." Kate's elbow pokes him in the side. "Oh, and if you wouldn't mind checking the oil?"

"Sure. Will do."

"Nice, Castle."

"Thanks for the not-so-gentle hint."

"You're welcome."

The boy eventually reappears. "What do I owe you, Kevin?"

"Twelve sixty-one. Oh, and the oil was good."

Castle hands him a hundred-dollar bill. "Here you go."

"I'll get your change. Um, nice ride you got. Really nice."

"Thanks. And Kevin? I appreciate a guy who knows his cars. Keep the change. Please."

He takes off before Kevin can respond.

"That was nice, too, Castle."

"Worth it to see the kid's expression."

"Which do you think meant more to him, the car or the eighty-seven thirty-nine tip?"

"Oh the car. No question. I was a sixteen-year-old boy once."

"Still are, sometimes."

When they get to the cabin they park at the back door. "Doesn't it feel as though we've been gone for ages?" she asks, stretching after she stands up, and breathing in the clean air. "Don't forget your bag in the trunk."

"Right," he says.

She precedes him into the kitchen and turns around when she hears wheels on the bare floor and sees his luggage. "A few things? That's a few things? You have two suitcases, one the size of Smart car."

"Well," he says softly. "I was kind of hoping that you'd invite me to spend the whole summer."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you all, from broiling hot NYC


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She hadn't seen that coming, and has no time to consider his request or even to frame a reasoned response. She looks at his bags. "Rimowa, huh? Never heard of that brand. Is it the suitcase equivalent of a Ferrari?"

"Pretty much."

"What's it made of?"

"Polycarbonate."

"Okay."

Okay what? She thinks he has okay taste in luggage? She approves of the material? What? What the hell is she saying? "Um. Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay. We might not spend all the time here, though. Who knows, we might take a trip. If you don't mind my traveling with a General Motors-like suitcase."

He's so stunned that he stumbles over both bags and lands on his butt in front of the stove.

"You know, Castle, when I said 'take a trip,' I didn't mean that."

Now he's flat-out on the floor, looking up at her, and all he can really register is her smile. That and the fact that she's okay, definitely okay, with him hanging around. "So I can stay?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

"Oh."

"I'd offer to help you get up, but I'm not quite that strong yet."

Rolling on to his side,he pushes himself up so that he's standing close enough to see the faint smattering of freckles on her nose. "You're a lot stronger than you were the first time I saw you in the kitchen, though."

She can't quite look him in the eye for this. "I am," she says, in a voice as soft as the one he'd used when they'd come through the door a few minutes ago. She waits a bit and adds, just as quietly, "Seems like ages ago."

He wonders if she needs him to lighten the mood a little, so he asks, "You saying time drags with me, Beckett?"

"Just the opposite, Castle." Feeling braver, she raises her eyes to his. "Things are so different now."

"They are." He reaches out, takes her hand, kisses her palm, and lets go. "Hey, you got a manicure while we were in the city."

"Thought I needed it. Pedi, too," she points to her sandaled feet. "I went after the doctor's. Good thing I did, since you probably needed the extra time to fill your Ferrari suitcases."

"Rimowa."

"Ferrari to me, now, Castle."

And just like that, balance is restored, and they both know it, even if—especially if—they don't say it out loud.

"Is that my cue to unpack?"

"I believe it is. Don't know if there's enough drawer space in Dad's room for all your stuff. We might have to go to Williams and buy you a bureau."

"I think I'll be able to manage. There's room in the closet, too. I hung my cargo shorts up in there and they looked lonely."

She gives him a tiny push. "Then go give them some company."

He's rolling the suitcases across the living room when he realizes that she's right behind him. "You coming to supervise me?" he asks over his shoulder.

"No, I'm going to take a nap. Hope you don't mind. This trip was a lot more tiring than I expected."

Uh oh. Now he's worried. "Are you all right, Kate? You said the doctor was pleased with your progress."

"I am. She did. It's just—" It takes her a minute to continue. "It was an emotional day, Castle. A lot of mixed emotions. Just need to rest a bit."

"Good. Okay. See you later."

"Right, later."

She closes her bedroom door, changes into a baggy tee shirt, and sits on the edge of her bed. She's not tired. Well, she is, but not sleepy tired. She loves the teasing that she and Castle exchange, but it also exhausts her. And scares her. She's ready for him, she's not ready for him. She wants it desperately, but what if she's not enough for him? Is she enough for him? Forever? Because she wants forever, and maybe when they start down this path she should be operating at full capacity.

Capacity for what?

Capacity for love? She doesn't think so, because to her astonishment she has discovered that her capacity to love him appears to be limitless. Because she loves him more with each meal, joke, story, and conversation. Because—and this is utterly, unfathomably new to her—she loves him in the silences, in the words, fragments, sentences, and paragraphs unspoken. For so long she thought of him as a noisy guy, when in fact he has a profoundly quiet side.

Is it his capacity that unsettles her? That his capacity to love her might not be limitless? That she may not continue to measure up?

Capacity for sex. That worries her. Definitely. Full capacity for sex, without worrying about hurting herself or worse, him worrying about hurting her. She doesn't want to have to hold back, physically. But she's almost there. Lydia Aronson said so.

Ah. Holding back physically. Is that the excuse she's using for holding back emotionally? She needs to keep in mind something else that Lydia had said to her this morning. Kate runs over it and over it and over it before opening the drawer in her nightstand and taking out the small notebook and pen that she keeps there.

"PERMISSION SLIP," she puts at the top, in large, block letters.

Then, underneath, she writes, "Katherine Beckett, I give you my whole-hearted consent to fall in love with Richard Castle, consent to give him your whole heart."

And below that, "Signed, Katherine Beckett, June 30, 2011"

She tears the piece of paper out of the notebook and puts it on the top of the nightstand, anchored by the base of her reading light. And without giving it any thought at all she curls up and goes to sleep.

He's planned and mostly prepared dinner, and before that he'd finished _The Brothers Karamazov_. How can she still be napping? The trip really must have taken it out of her. Was it going back to the city, making her think about her shooting? Her not wanting to see her friends? Is she emotionally at war with herself about that? He understands her point of view; maybe she's anxious that they won't? This isn't something she should be beating herself up about, shouldn't be. She's been in her room for three hours. She'll never be able to fall asleep tonight if he doesn't wake her up. But what if she's not asleep? What if something's wrong? He'll just tap on her door.

No answer.

Another tap.

Still no answer.

A louder, full-fisted knock.

Nope.

He'd go in, but she might be naked. Or not. You're a resourceful guy, he tells himself, go resource. He walks back to the living room and takes a good look around. Aha! The giant Webster's dictionary, which is wide open on an old-fashioned book stand. He picks it up, hoists it to chest-level, and drops it on the wide-plank pine floor.

The door is still closed but he hears her voice. "Castle! Are you all right?"

"Sorry! Sorry! Knocked over the dictionary." He picks up the book, but waits for her to come into view before he makes a display of returning it to its stand.

"Were you looking something up?"

Oh, shit. How had he not known that she'd ask that? "Oh, yeah, well, 'syzygy.' It's a favorite Scrabble word of mine, although it's almost impossible to have that combination, even with a blank which of course you would have to have since there are only two Y's in Scrabble and syzygy has three." He smiles and hopes he has the demeanor of someone who is telling the truth.

"Why were you looking it up?"

Shit, again. This woman can addle his brain. "Well, believe it or not," and she probably won't, "I've never known how to pronounce it. It loomed up for no reason while I was chopping an onion and I had to satisfy my curiosity. Felt like I couldn't be this ignorant if I were ever going to use the word again."

"You've used it?"

"Once. About a zillion years ago."

"Really. Didn't know you were that old."

"Feeling kind of prehistoric at the moment."

"You mentioned an onion. Is that what we're having for dinner?"

"Yes. But it's not the only thing on the menu."

"I'm relieved to hear it. May I hear what accompanies it? I'm starving, even after that cheeseburger."

"Shoulda had the cherry pie, Beckett. And whipped cream. Particularly that cream."

"So. Dinner?"

"Right. Salad with a lot of greens and some blueberries, and spaghetti with meatballs."

"Meatballs, eh?"

"Oh, yes, a ball that's not come up in our conversations to date."

"Until now. When are we feasting on these… balls?"

"Nine minutes. Just have to do the spaghetti, but the water's boiling and the salad's ready, so we can start on that while the pasta's cooking."

It's a nice dinner with good, aimless talking, but he feels as though something is simmering. He doesn't know what, but at least she's eaten an entire meal, for the first time since he got here, and he's thrilled.

"Returning to the subject of syzygy," she says.

"Did you know how to pronounce that before I said it?"

"Of course."

"What do you mean, 'of course'?"

"I'm interested in the stars, Castle. Didn't you know that?"

"Lot of things I still don't know about you, Kate." He wants to tuck that stray strand of hair behind her ear. Wants to leave brush his fingers across her cheekbone. Wants to caress it. Wants to kiss her. He mentally shakes his head. "You were saying? About syzygy"

"I was saying, do you want to play Scrabble?"

"Of course I want to play Scrabble. I'll clear the table if you'll get the game out."

The game begins in a low-key way, though they are highly competitive players. They've each played twice when she says, "You know what Monday is?"

"It's Monday."

"Duh. I meant that it's the Fourth of July."

"Seriously? I'd lost track. I love how small towns celebrate that holiday. Do they do something special here for the Fourth?"

"Oh, yeah. You'll see. You'll love it." She looks at her tiles. "Hey, would you like some coffee? Because I would."

"Another cue, I think." He pushes back his chair and stands up. "Coffee in a few minutes."

"Thanks, Castle."

As soon as he's in the kitchen, she plays a word. When she sees that the coffee is underway she calls out, "Your turn!"

"I just played."

"So did I. Ninety-eight points."

As he scurries back he says, "What did you do? And it better not be 'syzygy'."

"Nope. An eight-letter word, because I attached it to the O you used in 'video,' and I hit a double letter with my M and had a triple word and got fifty points for using all my letters."

"Put me out of my misery and tell me what you played."

She points to the word that's running down the right-hand edge of the board. "I have to say I think your meatballs inspired me: 'orgasmic'."

TBC

A/N Thank you again. I think they may have crossed the previously unknown Scrabble line.


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"Orgasmic food, huh?" he says, trying not to choke, grateful that he has nothing in his mouth.

"Just ask the owners of Harry Meets Sally, your favorite store in Williams. I'm sure they can quote chapter and verse." She beams at him. "So to speak."

He will control himself. He will sit calmly and find a word to play, preferably nowhere near hers—he can't even look at that inflammatory string of letters—and he will put his tiles on the board and announce his score and add it to the tally and he really doesn't care if he just makes "it" or "no," he just needs to get through this Godforsaken game. Oh, here's a distraction, he can get up for the coffee in a minute. _Get up_ maybe is not a good thought. He can _go get_ the coffee in a minute. He plays "and" for four points and she's clearly shocked. "Gonna get our coffee," he says, temporarily abandoning the table for the kitchen, where he very, very slowly retrieves two mugs, two spoons, and a pitcher and sets them on a tray. As laboriously as he can, he cuts two slices of watermelon, drops them in two bowls, and adds them to the tray. Then he wraps the melon as if it were a fragile item he had to ship overseas, and returns it to the fridge.

At long last, though not nearly long enough for him, he carries the tray to the table. "Here you are," he says, presenting her with both melon and coffee. "Did you play?"

"Of course. You were gone for at least ten minutes."

"Gross exaggeration. Let me see." She'd done well, getting twenty-two points by using three common letters to make "ion" but attaching it to "barre" to make "barren," with the N on a double-word space. "Nice. And you got rid of some junky letters, too."

"Thanks," she says, slurping noisily on the watermelon.

He looks carefully at his letters. And looks again. Thank you, Lady Luck. He has a C and the K; experience tells him to save them to use together, when he can play them to much better advantage. But experience isn't everything in this game, and it definitely isn't tonight. Tonight's game, after what she did, is about revenge. And right now, revenge is as sweet as chocolate lava cake. Maybe sweeter. Her "ion" is there, beckoning him, luring him. Who knew that that superficially harmless little word could be so seductive? With a passive expression, he attaches five letters to the front of "ion." Mmmmmm. The low score is irrelevant: this play is priceless. "Thirteen points," he says.

"Move your arm, Castle, I can't see your word."

"Oh, sorry, it's 'erection'."

He can see how hard she's working not to laugh, but he's her equal in that game, too. He locks eyes with her. She doesn't make a sound. "Beckett?" he asks, without losing eye contact.

"Yes?" Her eyes don't move, either.

"It's your turn."

"Your mind is totally in the gutter, Castle."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"Your word."

" _My_ word? There's nothing gutterish about it, although like 'gutter' it's a word common in the building trade. It's a simple one. 'The museum was erected in nineteen oh three.' I used the noun form of the verb 'to erect'. You played 'ion' and I seized the opportunity to make a longer word of it. To build on it. So if, as you claim, my mind is in the gutter, I believe that you're the provocateur, what with that and your earlier, ah, earlier _entry_. The big O."

She can't hold hold out any longer. "You win," she says, collapsing in laughter. "You win."

When her laughter trails off, he begins to hum.

She looks sideways at him, shakes her head, and begins to laughs all over again. "Yeah, yeah, Castle. I get it. 'Sweet, Sweet Surrender'."

"That's right, music to my ears, Kate."

"I think we did something here."

"What did we do?"

"We crossed the Scrabble line."

"Is that even a thing?"

"It is now, bud."

"Duly noted." Also duly noted, but tacitly, is the drop of watermelon juice at the corner of her mouth. It's sitting there, pink and glistening. He'd surrender his Ferrari if he could lick that off her, but he can't, so he talks to her. "You know what I really love, Kate? I really love seeing you laugh. When I got here you could barely chuckle without being in agony." She's smiling just a little, and the drop of watermelon juice is still there. He leans across the Scrabble board and brushes two fingertips over it. "You had." He has to clear his throat. And his mind. "You had a little bit of watermelon juice. Right there."

"I do? I mean, did?"

"Yeah. Gone now."

She reflexively puts her hand to the very spot where his had just been. It feels so warm. Suddenly she stands up—faster than she ever has since before the shooting. "Oh, my God. I didn't do my PT today. We left so early and then I took a nap and everything. And dinner. And stuff. I have to do it. Right now. Sorry. Okay?"

"Of course it's okay. But are you sure? It's late."

"I have to. It's my schedule. I have to stick to my schedule. It's important. Really, really important."

While he puts things in the dishwasher and cleans up the kitchen, he marvels at her determination and recalls a conversation they'd had not long after he'd arrived here, when she told him how independent she'd always been. "When my mother tried to show me how to tie my shoes I had a tantrum. Wanted to do it all by myself." He can picture a pint-sized Kate struggling with the laces, determined to get it. The way she's determined now, twenty-five years later, only this is one hell of a lot bigger than a little girl and her sneakers.

Since she's still doing her exercises, he ducks into the bathroom, washes his face, brushes his teeth, and heads for bed and his laptop. He's left the door slightly ajar because he wants to be able to hear her if she calls him for something. A while later—he has no idea how long, but long enough for him to have written more than 700 words of his new chapter—it's not her voice that he hears but her feet. Or the absence of her feet. The stopping of her feet. It sounds as though she stopped and is standing right outside his door. Nah, he must be imagining it. He types a few more sentences and hears, or thinks he hears, his name, and he looks up.

"Castle, are you awake?" The question is scarcely a blip on the decibel scale. If he weren't a father who's still attuned to hearing a baby cry from the other end of the apartment, even though his baby is now 17 years old, he probably wouldn't have known that she'd said anything.

"Of course. Come on in."

There's another silence, followed by another low-decibel question. "Could you come out here?"

Could he come out there? Does the sun rise in the east? Is the ocean salty? Yes. Yes. Yes. He's out of bed and opening the door before her request—it is a request, isn't it?—has finished charging the air. "Kate? Is something wrong?"

Dear God, she thinks, here he is. Look at him. His hair is sticking up, he's wearing a tee shirt that says SO HAPPY in bright blue letters, and boxers with rubber duckies printed all over them. How is it possible for anyone to look that cute and that sexy at the same time? He's like a little boy and a big man—apparently a very big man—all in one. Maybe this isn't a good idea. Her knees are a little wobbly. She's a little sweaty.

"Do you feel all right? Kate?" His hand is almost at her rib cage, just short of touching her.

"I do. I'm fine." She takes a moment before continuing. "I was just wondering if I could kiss you goodnight. Out here. In the hall."

It's not often that he prays late at night, but he is now. Praying that he's not dreaming this. She looks so sweet and serious. Tentative but confident at the same time. "Uh, we're not crossing the line, right? The line, capital T, capital L?"

"No, not ready for that. This is another line. About another kind of line." She inhales deeply. "I've been drowning for such a long time, since I was nineteen, before I was an adult."

She'd been looking at him, but now she moves her head slightly, as if she sees something behind him, and her eyes cloud over. He has no idea where she's going with this, but she wants to kiss him, so—.

"I'd come to the surface for a while, and start for shore, and then something would drag me under again. Sometimes I didn't want to fight my way back up, you know? Even if the water was cold or choppy or filthy. But for the past couple of years, something—someone—has kept pulling me out, getting me back to dry land, throwing me a lifeline, being my lifeline."

She pauses, and now she's looking at him again, up at him. He's still not quite used to that, but she hasn't been wearing heels out here, and without them she's several inches shorter than he.

"That's you, Castle. I want you to know that, that you've been my lifeline. That you are my lifeline."

He's not a drowning man, because a drowning man is frightened and desperate and often without hope. But his lungs seem to belong to a drowning man, because they feel as if they're about to explode. He finds that he can't speak. She's made this astonishing, life-changing declaration, and he can't speak. Most of his energy is directed to getting air; the rest, to keeping tears away.

"I wanted you to know that before I kiss you goodnight. If it's okay that I kiss you goodnight?"

He still can't talk, but he nods his head so vigorously that he almost pulls a muscle.

Kate comes very close to him and cradles his face with her hands, the heels meeting just beneath his jaw. She gradually moves them up until she can stroke his cheekbones with her thumbs, then takes them away to run her right thumb across his lips. He can't believe how gentle it is. He can feel her breath, but she's not kissing him yet. "Thank you, Castle," she says quietly. "Thank you. Thank you." He wants to say thank you right back, but his voice has abandoned him.

But when her mouth covers his, things are not so gentle. The tip of her tongue is pressing hard and harder against his lips, and he opens them. Though he's completely concentrated on her, he's also hyper aware of their surroundings: the grain of the wooden floor against his bare feet, the mingled scent of toothpaste and soap and the pines outside the open windows. And then that vanishes, and he's aware of nothing but her. It's all her, her tongue moving deep inside his mouth, her fingers digging in to his scalp, her thumbs at his temples. When they had kissed a few weeks ago, he could feel her nipples tightening against his chest, but now her breasts are full against it. He's longing to take his hands out of her gorgeous hair and skate them under her tee shirt and caress those perfect breasts, to take them in his mouth even though it would mean having to leave her mouth—her wet, warm mouth and its darting, slicing, slicking, curling tongue that is doing indescribable things to him. But he can't do that, not yet, and so he leaves his hands where they are and sinks deeper into the kiss.

She'd asked him to come out in the hall because it's neutral territory, neither his nor hers, and because the temptations anywhere else—the living room with its sofa, the bedrooms with their beds—are too great. Earlier today she had given herself permission to fall in love with him, but she needs everything to be right, and here is not the place and this is not the time for the next step. But she wants him to know how close she is. He's moving against her, kissing her ear and her neck, moaning into her mouth, and it's all she can do not to say, "Take me against the wall, Castle, right now, take me." She can feel how fast his heart is beating, how they match each other pulse for pulse, can feel him hot and hard and harder against her, and she knows what it's costing him to hold back for her.

And so she backs off, says, "Goodnight, Castle," and starts to leave.

She has gone only two steps when he reaches out, grabs her hand to stop her, and puts his palm over her cheek. "You're my lifeline, too," he says. "You know that, don't you?" He swallows, steadies his voice. "Thank you for saving me from drowning." He drops his hand and they both turn, he to his room and her to hers.

"Goodnight, Kate," he says from his doorway.

"Night, Castle," she answers from hers. And she gets into bed and pulls the sheet over her and whispers into the dark, "I love you."

TBC


	25. Chapter 25

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

When he'd said goodnight to her and gone into his room, he'd thought his heart would explode. Also, he'd admitted, other parts, so he'd thought some deflating thoughts. Then he'd picked up his laptop again and made a list of everything he loves about Kate and everything he loves about Beckett—because sometimes they're the same person, and sometimes they aren't—and at two o'clock in the morning, he'd finally gone to sleep. But every half hour, more or less, he'd woken up, so full of joy that he finally decided to get out of bed and go outside.

It's not even half-light yet, and he carefully makes his way to the pond. He drops down onto the little platform, just as he had done more than two weeks ago, but now when he splashes his feet he can leave them there. The water has warmed up a lot since then. Like a lot of other things. Other things—well, the most important thing, all-important thing—have heated up. Soon they might be sizzling. He hopes. He lies down on the platform, his feet dangling in the water, and stays there happily, immune to the buzzing mosquitoes since he'd had the foresight to spray himself with insect repellant.

His stomach is grumbling and his watch says 6:30, so he walks up to the house. He's starving and he wants coffee, but when he looks in the fridge he discovers that they're almost out of cream. This is a four-alarm emergency. He gets the pad of Post-its that sits by the phone and writes Kate a little note to let her know that he'll be out for a bit. Should he say something about their kiss, or ignore it, which until recently had been their default position? Should he begin it "Dear Kate"? Sign it "with love"? It takes him nine tries before he's satisfied with the tone, which he considers casually neutral overall, but has a whimsical romantic touch:

"Gone to the market. Back soon. xo"

He draws a castle turret on the bottom, sticks the note to the front of the coffeemaker, and leaves.

During the drive to Williams he sings sappy love songs, and when he finds that the store won't be open for another ten minutes he stands outside and hums some more. He is, of course, the first customer. After grabbing a pint of cream he goes directly to the checkout, bypassing the bright and shiny objects that he ordinarily can't resist ("Look, Beckett! Peanut-butter-and-jelly-flavored popcorn! In this cool foil bag!"), but when he reaches for his wallet his eye lands on the candy display. Oh! Ooh! It's serendipity! It's providence! It's a sign! "These, too, please," he says, handing six packages of candies to the cashier.

You're thinking in exclamation points, he tells himself when he steps out onto the sidewalk. You've got it bad. "Don't care," he says out loud. His feet may be heading to the car, but his nose is not. His olfactory receptors are almost screaming, and he pays attention. The nose wins.

"Morning Luanne, Billie Sue," he says, as he walks through the door of Land o Goshen. "I could smell those doughnuts from three blocks away."

"Good morning, Rick," Luanne says, wiping her hands on her apron. "Not surprised at that. They're still warm."

"I'll take two cinnamon and two honey-dipped, please."

"You don't want to try something else? That's what you bought last time."

"Whoa, you remember what I got?"

"Sure do. Don't get a lotta customers like you in here. How about a powdered-sugar or a Bavarian cream? They're awful good."

"I know. I tried bits from your sample bowl before. But these two?" He points to trays of his favorites, which are already on display in the glass-fronted case. "They got an incredible reception at home."

"Don't mess with success, huh?"

"You said it," he replies, hoping that Luanne mistakes the pinkness of his cheeks for sunburn.

As he turns into the driveway, he spots Kate through the window. She's moving around the kitchen with a dishtowel over her shoulder, and it's a sight of such domesticity, of such lovely ordinariness, that it almost stops his heart. He's surprised but happy that she hasn't heard the car because it lets him watch her. This is his longed-for everyday, her wandering around in a tee shirt and bare legs and no make-up, getting their coffee ready, and it feels as though it's almost within reach.

He inches the car forward and the crunch of the gravel alerts her to his arrival. "Hey, Castle," she says, opening the screen door for him. "How come you went to the market? At this hour?"

"Cream," he says as he mounts the steps, holding up the wax-paper carton in one hand while carrying the bakery bag in the other. "We were running dangerously low."

"And also dangerously low on doughnuts?"

"No wonder your closure rate is so high. You're a hell of a detective."

"You get anything else?"

"Nope."

"Nope?"

"Nothing."

"Then what's that bulge in your britches?"

"What?" He looks down at the front of his pants and she cracks up.

"Your pocket, Castle, your pocket. What have you got in there?"

"I'm not sure that I want to tell you now," he says, his nose in the air. "Not sure that you're sufficiently mature to handle it."

"Sufficiently mature? Which one of us put a whoopee cushion on Ryan's chair? And a disgustingly lifelike rubber rat in Espo's locker?"

"That's just a guy thing."

"Oh, please." She plunks down on a stool, drags the bag towards her, opens it, and inhales.

He's about to pour their coffee, but stops when he sees the rapturous expression on her face. Could it happen if she just smells the doughnut? Without her even having a tiny taste?

Her eyes are closed.

His are wide open.

She moans.

He drops the coffee pot.

"What the hell?" she says as she jumps off the stool, her hand to her chest, her eyes no longer shut.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, it slipped out of my hand." He disappears from view when he bends to inspect the damage. "Only a little spilled. No harm done." No harm done except she was mid-moan and now the moment is ruined. He tears off a couple of paper towels and mops up the little pool of coffee from the floor. "Here," he says afterwards, pushing her mug across the counter.

Kate makes a variety of small sounds of obvious contentment when she eats her honey-dipped confection, but no moans. "Thanks, Castle. That was incredible, but I think I need something healthy now, like fruit."

"Don't move a muscle," he says, extending his arm like a traffic cop. "You've come to the right place."

"I have?"

"Yes. I just happen to have an array of pocket-sized fruit, for your delectation." He reaches down, gathers in one hand all the candy he'd bought in town, and puts it down in front of her. "We have Wild Cherry, which goes nicely with your shampoo; Fruiteria; Hawaiian Fruits, and my personal favorite, the classic Five Flavors, although they updated the flavors a few years ago and I miss the lemon one. Also Wint O Green, which is not quite a fruit, and Butter Rum, which is not a fruit at all and more appropriate when the sun is over the yardarm."

She's completely still as she looks over the little rolls of candy. "Oh, Castle," she finally says, looking at him with what he recognizes as love, even if she hasn't said so. "You bought Life Savers. Life Savers. Because, because—." She can't finish her sentence because she's too choked up.

"Because you saved my life," he finishes for her. "You saved me from drowning."

She walks around the counter, and he gets to his feet. She puts her arms around him, warmly but not tight, presses her face against his chest, and cries. Not gulping sobs, but noiseless weeping. She cries so long that the entire front of his jersey is wet. "So happy, Castle," she says, pulling away from him and rubbing her hands against her eyes.

"You're so happy?"

"No, I meant your shirt. I cried all over your so happy tee shirt, the one you had on last night in the hall. Never gonna forget that shirt."

He hadn't realized that he hadn't changed yet this morning, that he'd gone to town in what amounts to his pajamas, though at least he'd had the wits to put on some jeans. "So you're not happy?"

"Oh, I am. I'm so, so happy." She smiles and swipes at her eyes again. "May I have a butter rum Life Saver, even if the sun isn't over the yardarm yet?"

"Throw caution to the winds, Kate. And why not? It's safe for you to eat since it's not actual rum. Alcohol-free. Won't interfere with your meds, though it would be nice for me if it did. I miss those buzzed-up texts, you know? Your uncensored commentary."

She picks up a roll of Life Savers, unwraps it, and pops a candy into her mouth. "Mmmmm, butter rum." She rolls it around, clicks it against her teeth, and makes close-to-obscene sucking noises. Then she walks across the living room, and when she reaches the hall stops and turns to him. "Uncensored commentary, huh? You miss that?"

"I do. That's what got me here, you may recall."

She opens her hand to reveal another butter rum Life Saver, and tosses it into her mouth. This time the sucking noise reaches obscene standards. "Castle," she says, licking her lips, "this is so fucking good I can hardly stand it." And she turns down the hall and shuts her door.

"Nice exit line!" he calls after her. He knows she's going to do her PT now, so he decides to lie down on the sofa. He's got a sleep deficit and needs a nap.

There's a bird on his foot. It has landed on the side, near his big toe, and it's beginning to attack him. He can feel it scratching away at his arch, now scrabbling upwards, probably searching for the meat of his calf. He's suddenly aware of its nails, the talons that are going to seize him and drag him off to some aerie where an entire family of voracious raptors will eat him for lunch. He's struggling to get away, but he can't. The bird is strong. And now it's singing. Do hawks sing? Do vultures? If they sing, can they sing words? Can they sing Carly Simon's "Are You Ticklish?"

He opens one eye. Kate is standing at the other end of the sofa, tickling his foot. "You're so much better looking than a buzzard," he says.

"A buzzard?"

"I dreamed that a bird of prey was lusting for my foot."

"Well, it's not your foot that's at the top of my lust list, it's—" She covers her mouth. "Never mind."

Oh, God, she has a lust list? How can he get a copy? "What were you doing?"

"Wondered if you were ticklish. It seems that you are."

"Your fingernails are nicer looking than raptor talons, too."

"Wow, thanks, Castle. There's a compliment I can take to the grave."

He draws up his knees and moves so he's sitting. "Come over here next to me."

"Only if you promise not to compare me to any other rapacious birds."

"I promise." He takes her hand and turns it over. "Did you know I took a class in palmistry?"

"You're kidding."

"You couldn't really call it a class, more like two hours of listening to a gypsy from Astoria explaining, in an unidentifiable and shifting accent, all the lines of the palm. It was for a story I was writing that I wisely abandoned."

She likes having her hand in his. It feels wonderful. It feels right. "You remember any of it?"

"A little. Like this." He touches the tip of his finger to the outer edge of her palm, about an inch below the base of her pinky, and runs it on a gradual curve to the space between her middle and index fingers. "This is your heart line. It's very deep."

"Is that good?" she asks, hoping her voice isn't cracking.

"Yes. And see the little forks at the end of it? Right here?"

He's tracing them. It's so erotic that she's having to will herself not to straddle him and tear off his shirt and rip off his pants, and. "Yeah, yeah, I see. Yeah. What does that mean?"

"It means you have a kind heart, Kate." He folds his fingers around hers and wraps them tight until her hand is completely enclosed within his.

"I guess that's today's line, then. We crossed the heart line?"

He lifts his free hand and draws an X over the left side of his chest. "We did. Cross my heart."

She drops her head onto his shoulder and leaves it there. "Good."

They stay that way for a long time until she picks her head up and looks at him. "Were you writing last night? Before, you know. I thought I saw you with your laptop."

"Yeah."

"What were you writing?"

"Then or later?"

"You were writing later?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"What were you writing at first?"

"Nikki and Rook. New chapter."

"And what about—about after?"

"I was making a list."

"A list? Of what?"

"Of everything I love about you."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you, everyone—and especially the wonderful, faithful guest reviewers, like Hawkie, because I can't thank you personally.


	26. Chapter 26

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"You made a list?"

"It's a two-part list, really. The main part is about you and then there's a part about Beckett because in some ways you're very different people."

"May I see it?"

He should have known. Why the hell had he told her? Because he couldn't resist, that's why. But there are things on that list that—. Well. "Um, it's a little sketchy, you know? It was late and my mind wasn't at its sharpest. Not that I don't know what's great about you, but I'm a writer, right? So I don't like to submit first drafts and this, this is definitely a first draft."

"Castle, it's a list. It doesn't matter if there are no complete sentences, only fragments. It doesn't need subjects and predicates and parallel construction."

"See, now there's something I love about you. You're a grammar nerd."

"Hold on, hold on. Oh, I know. I know." She growls and pinches him in the center of his bicep. Which is unyielding and hard and smooth and redirects her mind to places that it's been visiting a lot lately. "Your list has porn on it, doesn't it? That's why you don't want me to see it, you perv."

"Porn? Please. I mean, I haven't even seen you naked"—not absolutely true, he had seen one perfectly sculpted buttock and one tantalizing breast when her apartment had blown up last year—"so how could it be porn? It's things I already love about you, not imaginary things."

"Imaginary?"

"Correction, things of which I have no personal knowledge. So far. To date." If she knew what he had already imagined about her she'd be doing something a lot more extreme than pinching his arm.

"So now you're saying that you've never imagined anything about me?"

Apparently she's reading his mind again. "Not what I'm saying."

It's then that she gives him a look, the one that ordinarily separates Kate from Beckett because he's seen only at the precinct. Until now. It's aimed at him and from three inches away it's terrifying. He's bracing for her protest, but instead she gets up and leaves. Has he really ticked her off? Is she going to sulk in her room? He can hear moving things around, so she hasn't shut the door, but he doesn't know how to react. Should he go talk to her or wait? Go do something else? Lunch, he could make lunch. It's getting late. But, she's back? With her laptop? No, his laptop. Shit.

"This is yours, Castle," she says, thrusting his MacBook at him. "Let's see your list."

"You know, you mentioned having a lust list. I could demand to see that."

"Not a chance."

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander."

"It's all catalogued here," she says, tapping her temple. "I don't need to write it down. Nobody's going to get a gander at it."

"Nice word play. Which, by the way, I don't need to add to the list because it's already on it. How good you are at word play."

"Prove it," she snaps.

He's suddenly tired and sad and confused. A few minutes ago they were in this blissful little cloud and now he feels as if they're plunging into some kind of anteroom to hell. He hates that this happens and he's going to do something about it. If there were nothing between them it wouldn't happen. If she could just let herself trust herself and trust him, it wouldn't happen. If she could just _let go_. He knows she's trying, and things get in the way.

"I will prove it. Right now." He opens the lid of his laptop, clicks on the document he'd made not many hours ago, and points. "Read."

Some things I love about Kate:

 _smarter than I am_

 _kicks ass_

 _refuses to kiss ass_

 _gorgeous ass_

 _(almost) never shows off, even when she has good reason_

 _physically brave, opposite of me_

 _reads everything_

 _loves my books—I will get her to admit it_

 _banters like someone out of Jane Austen, only hot_

 _ditto word play_

 _Olympic-level flirter_

 _never quits_

 _kind, esp. to people who need kindness_

 _would take care of my kid if I die_

 _hates eggplant_

 _tip of her tongue shows between her lips when she's trying not to laugh and I almost come every time I see it_

 _speaks Russian_

 _speaks French_

 _doesn't speak Chinese_

 _LEGS, which I hope to God will be around my neck and my back and my ass soon_

 _would get me out of jail_

 _dumped a cardiothoracic surgeon (for me)_

 _likes quiet_

 _the most sensual nipples I've ever felt, even through a shirt_

 _good crier_

 _great laugher_

 _that moan_

 _lets me stay_

 _lets me love her_

He can't look at her while she reads, so he just stares at the screen. When he senses that she's moved her head, that she's come to the end of the list, he closes the document, and shuts the lid. She hasn't made a sound, so he takes the laptop back to his room. He's at a loss, and he stares out the window at nothing and everything and nothing.

Later, he doesn't know when, he feels her, feels her before he sees or hears her. Her breath is warm against his back. She must be standing almost up against him. Her arm snakes around him without touching him, and he can see that she's holding a scrap of paper, folded into a square.

"I'm sorry, Castle." She talking into the space between his shoulder blades. "I'm still so bad at this. I know I get mad for no apparent reason, and I hope that you'll believe me that I won't always be like this. I'm in pieces, and I'm still trying to put myself together. Sometimes I felt as if I were hot-glued and all the parts were in the wrong places and I had to rip them off and start all over. It's so scary, and I need a little more time. Just a little."

She stops. Her breathing has changed; it's coming faster. "I'm not a writer, but yesterday when we got back from the city I wrote this. I want you to have it. Or read it, anyway. It might help you to understand." She's holding the paper against the bottom of his rib cage and he takes it from her hand. "Don't do it while I'm here, okay? Wait 'til I go out on the porch. I need the air out there. By myself." She withdraws her arm and presses her lips to the back of his neck and walks silently away.

Waiting. Waiting and waiting for the click of the latch on the screen door before he reads her testimonial, or whatever it is. His hand is trembling so violently that the paper falls to the floor, and he's so afraid that it will blow away that he puts his foot on top of it, then bends over and picks it up. He reads it. And reads it again. And again. And again until he remembers every syllable, every loop and downstroke of every letter that she wrote. It is the saddest and most beautiful thing he's ever read. She had to give herself permission to do what she's done. To fall in love. And he has a powerful conviction that she hasn't done this before. Not just the permission part, but the falling in love. That he is the first person to whom she has given her whole heart. No wonder she's scared. No wonder she needs time.

"Me?" he asks himself, in astonishment, sitting down hard on the edge of the bed. "She chose me?" He unfolds the paper and smoothes it out on the top of the bed. Folds it up again. Opens it. Closes it. Reaches for his wallet, fits the note into a small inside pocket, and puts the wallet in the drawer of the nightstand.

Tomato soup? He smells tomato soup. How can that be? How long has he been in here, anyway? Judging from the angle of the sun, a long time. It must be 5:00, at least. Is Kate still outside? Is she all right? And what's with the soup?

There she is, sitting at the little dining table. The light is behind her, so he can't see her face clearly. She has set two places: mats, napkins, bowls, spoons, glasses of water. There is a bud vase in the middle of the table with one half-open, dark pink rose, and a basket of something, wrapped up in another napkin.

"I made soup. Well, I opened a can and heated it up. Other than breakfast, I can't really cook. You know that, I guess. Of course you do. Is it okay if we have tomato soup? It was here. It's always here because it was my favorite when I was a kid. So we always have it in the cupboard. Even when Dad was falling-down drunk he remembered that I loved tomato soup. You know how on your birthday you get to pick whatever you want for dinner? I always chose that. Campbell's. Nothing homemade. It's been keeping warm on the stove."

She gets up in a way he can describe only as elegant. All the tentativeness, physical and psychological, of the last few weeks appears to have melted. She seems anxious but calm. As if she's let go of a burden but she's not used to having if off her back. Not sure if it's all right that she's not still carrying it around. When she returns from the kitchen she's carrying a saucepan and a ladle, which she uses to fill the bowls, and sets the pot on a wooden trivet at the end of the table. "I found that in the back of a drawer just now," she says. "I made it at day camp when I was seven. It's Popsicle sticks. Still works fine."

When he sits down it strikes him that he hasn't said a word. Not one since he told her to read the list on his laptop. She's run out of words, maybe, and she's looking at the creamy soup in the bowl. He moves his hand on top of hers. "Hey. Did you see 'four-star chef' on the list of reasons I love you?"

"No." She shakes her head, but she doesn't look up.

"Then Campbell's tomato soup from a can is fine." He picks up his spoon and takes a soup. "Really good, as a matter of fact. You're a great heater-upper."

"God, I hope so. You'll find out pretty soon."

The soup doesn't come out of his nose, but it does run down his chin. When he recovers he nods his head at the basket. "What's in there?"

"Doughnuts," she says. "It's the course before the Planter's peanuts. You know, dinner, soup to nuts."

He takes a few more sips of soup and rests his spoon against the rim of the bowl. "May I keep your permission slip? For a while?"

"Yeah. You can."

"I can give it back whenever you want. I memorized it."

"I think I'd like you to keep it, Castle. I know it's safe with you."

"You are, too, Kate. Safe with me."

They don't say anything for the rest of the meal. It's a wonderfully comfortable silence, and when they're doing the dishes together afterwards he says, "That might be the best dinner I ever had. Or lunch. Dinner. Whatever it was."

They don't talk about it, but this not-talking-about-it is not like the events in their shared past, the ones they shoved into the back of a sock drawer and never acknowledged. This is one that's settling into their bones. They'll talk about it soon, and that's good. They have a very quiet, very happy weekend.

On Sunday night he's in bed and has just turned off the light when he hears Kate tapping on the door.

"Castle? Are you awake?"

He's even quicker than he had been a few nights earlier, when she'd stood outside his room. "I'm awake!" He opens the door and finds her in the same thing she'd been wearing that first morning, when he was sweeping up the coffee beans. Not the fuzzy sock, but the Rosie the Riveter shirt and the panties. "What's up, Kate?"

"It's one minute past midnight."

"It is? Okay. So, um, happy Monday?"

"It's the Fourth of July."

"Wow, right. I'd forgotten. So, happy Fourth."

"Big day for me, Castle."

What's she talking about? It's really hard not to look at that almost transparent shirt of hers. "Oh. Not your birthday, that's November. I'm sorry, I didn't know the Fourth meant so much to you."

"It doesn't, usually," she says. At that moment her face is transformed as if it were lit by a handful of sparklers. "But this year?" She pulls her tee shirt over her head, drops it on the floor, and smiles. "It's my own personal Independence Day. I'm free."

TBC


	27. Chapter 27

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This chapter will move into M territory towards the end. If you're not comfortable with that, you can stop before they cross The Line. All you need to know is this: they are very, very happy together.

He's gaping, and how could he not? She's even more beautiful than he's imagined or dreamed, and he's done a lot both. He's still speechless when he feels a tug at the hem of his tee shirt.

"Castle?" she says. "Would you take this off?"

"Of course. Yes. This second." He yanks it over his head and drops it right next to hers. "So," he says, pointing at her discarded Rosie the Riveter jersey, "WE CAN DO IT!"

"No," she says, wrapping her hand around his wrist before he can take off his shorts.

"No?"

She shakes his arm. "Don't look so tragic. Just the shirt for now. All right? I need to explain."

"I hope you can speed talk, Kate, because. Well, because."

"This wait isn't easy for me either, Castle. I want you so much I can hardly function. But here's the thing. I don't want to have sex with you for the first time in this house. My parents' house. I want you to make love to me and me to make love to you somewhere else. For our first time. Today, definitely today. But now, before we go wherever we go, I want your skin against my skin. I want to feel that, to know just for a minute, but forever, the sensation of that. But if we're completely naked, things will escalate and I don't want that. I mean I do want that, but not here. Not until we're away from here."

Away from here? Okay. They're going together. Kate's going with him. It's good, it's good. It is. He can wait a few hours longer if that's what she wants. And she's almost naked. Beautifully, stunningly, sexily, almost naked. And later today she will be completely naked. With him. They'll both be naked.

Her hand is still circling his wrist when she steps into him and pulls his arm around her. "Just hold me. Please, Castle. Hold me." And then there is no air between them. Nothing. Nothing but skin against skin, at least from the waist up. Her cheek is resting against his heart, and she's aware of how little hair he has on his chest. She knew it, because she'd seen him without a shirt several times over the last few weeks, but seeing it and feeling it are very different. His chest is massive, there must be an acre of skin here, taut but smooth and incredibly soft, and even though he's still she can feel muscles moving under it. "You smell fantastic."

"So do you," he says, his face buried in her hair. Holding her—this warm, delicate, strong, astonishing woman—is thrilling and almost overwhelming.

"We must smell alike. Using the same soap. And shampoo."

"Oh, there are some big differences."

She laughs, and with some difficulty breaks away and takes several steps back. "Serious. Just for a second." She puts her arms out to her sides. "This is me, Castle. You know I'm not perfect, especially with some of the crap I've put you through up here, but my body isn't perfect either, see? I want you to see, because you're probably used to perfect women."

"Looks perfect to me, Kate," he says and moves towards her.

"Stay there, stay there. Look. Here's where they had to open me up." She runs a nail along the angry gash, then touches the tips of two fingers between her breasts. "And this is where the bullet hit me. These scars aren't magically going to go away. They'll fade, but they're ugly, and they're here for keeps. Part of my Independence Day is to declare myself free from them. That I won't let them get in the way of anything."

"But they're what got me here, aren't they, Kate? How long do you think it would have taken us together without this? If you hadn't been so out of your mind on pain pills that you texted me? We might never have happened. Too much time apart, too much hurt. And that's something that I can't bear to think about, especially now." He bends over and picks up her tee shirt. "I can't believe I'm asking you this, but please put this back on. There's only so much I can take, and if I keep seeing your perfect breasts—and they are perfect, believe me—in front of me I might have a heart attack."

She pulls the shirt over her head, but lets it sit crumpled across her shoulders. "You don't think they're too small?"

"No," he says, shaking his head. "They're perfect. I'm aching, and I do mean aching, to get a lot more than my eyes on them. Which I will be doing right this second if you don't cover them up."

"Done." Her shirt is back on, and she's grinning. "Do you want to leave now or get some sleep first?"

"You think I can sleep with your proposition dangling in front of me?"

"Dangling? And by the way, put on your shirt. You're very distracting."

He's in such a rush that he puts it on backwards, and grumbles when he has to straighten it out. "I think there's a Holiday Inn about twenty miles from here. And I'm flooring it. I'll drive so fast it won't even register on Sergeant Nelson's radar."

"No. No, no, no. no. We're not going to a motel. We can go to my apartment."

"Are you serious? I'm not getting in that bed. Not the bed that Doctor Motorcycle Man was in with you. We can go to my place."

"What? No way I'm getting in a bed that's seen all that deep-fried Twinkie action."

"It's a new mattress, Kate. In fact, I got a new mattress after Gina and I broke up."

"Is it the same headboard?"

"Well, yes."

"I rest my case."

"The Hamptons! We can go to the Hamptons!"

"Uh, huh. What's the bed situation there, hmm?"

He starts bouncing on the balls of his feet. "In April I had my entire room redone, including the bathroom. The whole master suite. New bed, everything. Every ghost has been exorcised. It's spectacular, I promise. I've seen it, but I haven't stayed there since it was finished. We'd be the first. For our first. What do you say?"

She holds his pleading look for several seconds. "Sold. Let's go. But we do have to put our pants on."

"Not for long."

Despite it being the middle of the night they change into more presentable clothes; they have a long drive ahead and will have to stop at least once. He makes a Thermos of coffee while she puts a few of her things in a bag. "Ready?" she asks as she comes into the kitchen.

"Ready."

"Don't suppose that Land o Goshen is open yet?"

"Kate, it's two o'clock in the morning."

"I thought bakers started work really early."

"They do, but—"

"Then can we take a detour to Williams? It won't take long. Please. They might have doughnuts."

"I think I've turned you into an addict. Why are you hell-bent on getting doughnuts now, anyway?"

She gives him an open-mouthed stare. "Really? It hasn't occurred to you that those doughnuts are an aphrodisiac?"

He can't help snorting. "You're right. For you, for sure. I just don't think we need an aphrodisiac, do you?"

"For the road, Rick."

"You're killing me."

They turn off all the lights, check the stove, lock the door, and point the car towards Williams. The town is dark, and just as they turn around to get to the highway—a disappointed Kate sighing from the passenger seat—a light comes on in the back of the shop. "Castle, Castle! They're there!"

Leaving the car at the curb, they walk around the building and he taps on the window. "Billie Sue!"

She looks up, a little alarmed, and he waves madly at her. "Rick?"

"Yeah, it's me!"

"C'mon in," she says, opening the door to them.

"Billie Sue, this is Kate Beckett. Her family has had a cabin up here for years. I've been visiting. We're, we work together at the NYPD."

"Pleased to meet, you, Kate."

"Same here, Billie Sue. I have to tell you, your doughnuts have transformed my life."

"She's not kidding," he says. "Where's Luanne?"

"At Mount Scrumptious." She turns to Kate and smiles widely. "That's what we've been calling the bake room since Rick said our doughnuts must have been grown on Mount Scrumptious. It's the little shed behind us, you can see it right through the window. We do the mixing and everything in here, but we keep the deep fryers out there. Lot less hot that way."

"I think I can smell them," Kate says, sniffing happily.

"You do. First batch. Now, you two, not that I'm not tickled to have people drop in, but no one's ever done it at this time of night." There's the sound of a door closing, and another opening. "That must be my sister."

It is, and more introductions follow. "We're here because Kate and I are going on a little trip, just a day or two. We were saying to each other that we wished we had some of Land o Goshen's finest to take with us, and she wondered if you were open yet. And—"

"And by gum we are!" Luanne says. "Not really, but we're here and you're here, so why the heck not? We've only made that one batch so far but you're in luck, 'cause they're cinnamon. Rick says those and the honey-dipped are your favorites, Kate. If you don't mind waiting until four we can have some of those for you, too."

"You're so kind," Kate says. "But we do have to get on the road. If you wouldn't mind selling us a few cinnamon ones, though, we'd be in your debt."

"Not at all, honey. I'll just put some—four? is that right?—in a paper sack for you."

They're on their way to the car, Kate clutching the bag in her hand, when Luanne pops her head out the door. "Psst! Just wanted you to know, those are really good to eat in bed. Enjoy your fireworks!"

"Oh, my God, Castle," she says through clenched teeth. "Are we that obvious?"

"Apparently. You are, anyway."

"Shut up."

"Are you going to eat one of those now?"

"No."

"Saving them for bed?"

"Saving something for bed. That's all I'm saying."

She's surprisingly quiet on the road, and he realizes that she's tired. They're both running on adrenaline, but he's much better equipped to take it than she is, at least at the moment, because she's still recovering. "Close your eyes for a while, Kate. I'll wake you."

He doesn't have to. About 80 miles later she sits up abruptly and says, "Pull over for a minute."

He immediately slows down and brakes on the shoulder. It's still early and it's a holiday, so there's almost no traffic. "Are you all right? Are you sick?"

"No, I just woke up and I want to tell you something, but you can't be driving when I do."

"Okay. We're stopped. Parked. My hands are off the wheel. What do you want to tell me?"

"You wanted to know about my lust list. So I'll tell you what's at the top." She reaches across his thigh, spreads her hand over his crotch and squeezes, hard. "That's it, Castle. Number one on two lists."

"Two?" he squeaks.

"Lust list and bucket list. I can kill two birds with one—I hesitate to say it—stone." She laughs and then she stops. When she's sure that he's looking at her, she lets the tip of her tongue show between her lips.

"Holy shit."

" _Puis-je conduire ta voiture maintenant_?"

"Whatever you said, the answer is probably yes. What did you say?"

"It's French."

"That much I know."

"I said, 'Can I drive your car now?' I don't know what it is in Chinese."

"Sorry, the answer's no, even if you ask in Russian, too. I'm driving the rest of the way."

"How far is it?"

"About half an hour, unless you fail to keep your hands to yourself, in which case we might never get there because I'll drive the car right off the road into a ditch." Later, when they've passed through the middle of town, he says, "We're almost there. Just down at the bottom of this road and to the left."

"You're absolutely sure that your mother isn't there, right?"

"She's on Cape Cod starring in a summer-stock revival _Mame_ , a show she has wanted to do for as long as I can remember. No way she's missing a minute of it. The house is all ours. And speaking of house, here it is."

Theoretically she disapproves of staring, but for this place she makes an exception. "Wow. It's gorgeous. And huge."

"You talking about me or the house?"

That gets him a look, too. She gets out of the car and is about to head for the front door when he takes her hand.

"Wait."

"Aren't we going in?"

"There's something we have to do first. It'll only take a minute." He walks her to the rear of the house, then onto a little path that leads down a grassy slope directly to the beach. He takes off his shoes and rakes the toes of one foot through the sand. "Okay, let's step over this together."

"What was that for?" she asks, after making a little hop with him.

"We just crossed the line in the sand."

"Nice, Castle. I think that's the signal for us to go in."

"Oh, definitely. Can't have you getting sunstroke."

"Not the kind of stroke I'm hoping for, bud."

The master suite is on the second floor, and when he opens the door her mouth falls open. The bedroom, which is done in a variety of blues, sea green, and white, must be 600 square feet, with windows facing east over the water and north over shrubbery and trees. No other house is visible. A queen-size bed is backed up against one wall, with a working fireplace opposite it and one set of windows ten feet away. "You weren't kidding. It's spectacular."

"You like it?"

"I love it. The only thing that surprises me is that you don't have a king-size bed. You, the king of large gestures."

"A king-size bed? Not with you. I don't want to have to travel that far in bed to find you."

"You were that confident that I'd come?"

"Not confident at all." He's very serious. "But I never gave up hope." He trails his hand very gently across her jawline, down her neck and to her collarbone before brushing the piping on her scoop-necked blouse. "Can you raise your arms?" She nods, and he sweeps off the light cotton top. She's still not wearing a bra. There's a breeze coming through the window he'd just opened, and she shivers, her nipples already pebbled. "Are you cold, Kate?"

"No, just happy. Eager. Full of, full of anticipation." She touches his shirt. "This has to go, too." He raises his arms and she pulls the tee shirt over his head and drops it on the floor. "And your jeans." She looks into his eyes as she undoes the button and eases down the zipper. She can feel how hard he already is, but when she takes hold of the belt loops to tug down his pants, she gasps. "Commando? You're commando?"

"Didn't want to take the time to put shorts on," says, shoving his jeans the rest of the way down and stepping out of them. "Especially since I knew I wouldn't be wearing them for long. I'm getting you naked now." When he undoes the drawstring tie on her soft jersey pants, they slide to the floor on their own, and it's his turn to gasp.

"Guess we read each other's minds again, huh, Castle?"

"I guess we did. You know what I'm thinking right now?"

"That you'd like to jump my bones? Because I'd like to jump yours and we're in synch a lot."

If someone with an Olympic-caliber stopwatch were timing them, it still wouldn't be clear who moves first, but the result is the same. Two bodies propel forward into an embrace of such explosive passion that it knocks them onto the bed. She lands on her back, but even his overheated brain is capable of understanding that she can't take the full weight of his body on her, so he rolls them over. They're skin-on-skin again, but this time there's nothing at all between them as they steal each other's breath, tongues slipping from his mouth to hers and back, then moving to lick a spot that teeth have just nipped, hands exploring, caressing, scratching. He rolls them over again, and props himself up on his forearms, leaning over to take one of her breasts in his mouth, and then the other. Each time that he moves, he kisses the scar that was the left by the bullet, and each time he latches on to a breast he sucks harder and longer. She's beginning to thrash around, and push on his head.

"Down," she pants. "Down."

He needs no encouragement, as he scoots towards the end of the bed, nudging her legs farther apart. "You're so wet already," he says, looking up from between her thighs.

"Your tongue. Jesus, I've never felt a tongue like yours. Make me come with just your tongue. No fingers."

Not in his best, filthiest dreams had he heard her ask exactly that. He licks the softest parts of her inner thighs, varying the pressure with each pass, withdrawing to blow softly on her, then running his tongue over her again, sometimes flat out, sometimes just touching the tip to her skin. And then she pulls his hair.

"No more teasing. Just."

This is a challenge he's truly enjoying. His tongue swirls around her center, clockwise, counter clockwise, and her hips are arching off the bed. He licks her center, bottom to top, as slowly as he can. And then he does it again, curling his tongue, flattening it, scooping her out with it, and then he pours the pressure on and she pours into him, her verbal accompaniment a moan that soars to a full-throated scream. She jerks so hard against him he's surprised he doesn't have a bruise.

"Wow," he says. "Wow." She opens her eyes and he says it again. "Wow, Kate."

"Get up here, Castle." She's sweating and breathing hard, but she gives him a kiss. "That was amazing. You are amazing." She kisses him again. "Sorry, my brain's so fried I can't come up with better words."

"Looks like you enjoyed that."

"Looks like you did, too. Licking your lips. So, how did I compare to that chocolate lava cake that you're so proud of? The one you got to squirt."

"That cake has nothing on you, nothing."

"Not to let your head get any bigger, but you're a hell of a chef. That was my first time, to, you know."

"Really?"

"Please don't fist pump."

"I won't."

She has regained enough strength to roll on top of him, and she looks into his eyes. "You know what? We did this backwards."

"What?"

"We're crossing the finish line, but it's really the starting line, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he says, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Start of something big."

"Speaking of that," she says, taking him in her hand but never taking her eyes of his, "your head did get bigger, a lot bigger. This one, anyway. I can tell. Can I look forward to something hot and molten?"

"You talking about the cake?"

"No."

"Good."

She's inching up his body, nibbling as she goes, and stroking him at the same. Occasionally she abandons the stroking for tickling; her assault is relentless, and so is his, as he goes after her breasts again. "My fingers," he murmurs, as he twists one of her nipples.

"Your fingers? I like what they're doing right now."

"My fingers were very jealous of my tongue before, insanely jealous."

"Right now my tongue," she says, sliding down his chest, "is insanely jealous of my fingers. And I'm gonna do something about it." And with only that as a warning, she takes him in her mouth.

Oh, God, her slippery, hot, sweet, tender, succulent, sucking mouth. He wonders if it's truly possible that your eyes can roll so far back in your head that you can't see. He thinks she's saying something deliciously filthy, she's humming against him, but his ears aren't working, either. And then, what? Where did she go? He feels her legs, those legs he's been wanting around him for three years, pressing against him, her knees like vises against his hips. He opens his eyes. Thank God, he can see. He can see her rising up.

She can see him rising up. She's a little nervous about her strength, but she steadies herself with one hand on his chest, and guides him into her with the other. She moves onto him slowly, because he's big—very big—and she hasn't had sex in months. The slow stretch is a little painful, but exquisite, and she realizes that she has to lean forward, into him, moving her hands over his head to put less pressure on herself. It works, and it brings them face to face as they quickly find a seductively slow rhythm. "Castle," she whispers into his ear while putting her hands on his shoulders. "I can't pull you up. Can you sit up?"

He curls upwards, still inside her, wrapping his arms and legs around her, and she does the same to him. They're sitting on the bed, as close as two bodies can be, slick and almost still. "We're hot glued together Kate, but in all the right places." They can hardly move, and it's exactly what they both want, because it prolongs the moment. They've waited so long, and they want to make this last. When he twitches, she clenches in response, and suddenly he rolls them over so she is on her back. "I have to move, I can't stand this any longer."

"Yes, yes, move," she urges him.

He's thrusting so hard that he's afraid he'll hurt her, and he pulls back.

What is he doing? She sees his expression: he's worried about her. He's worried. She grabs him by the ass. "No, no. Harder. Don't worry. I won't break."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Castle?" She's scrabbling now, and her body is half off the mattress as she tries to draw him deeper. "I'm hanging on to you, so this would be a great time for your fingers to do the talking."

"They love to talk almost as much as I do," he says, and takes her mouth while pressing two fingers hard at the point where he and she are joined.

That was all she needed. She feels as if she's exploding, yet she somehow manages to speak. "Come, now. Come while I'm still coming."

Her newly manicured nails are digging in to him, and in two thrusts, he's a goner, spilling in to her and collapsing on to her, foggily remembering to bring her into his side. They lie like that, in a sprawl of heaving bodies, until their heart rates and respiratory functions are approaching normal.

"I always knew you'd be indescribable in bed, Kate," he says, pressing his lips against her cheekbone. "But I never knew you'd be so much fun."

"Really?" she asks, and kisses him back.

"You're sextraordinary, Kate."

"And you, Castle? You're sexciting."

 **A/N** : Thank you for your generosity and astonishing support throughout all these chapters. I hope to be back next week with the start of a new story.


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